Come Holy Spirit

Sunday is Pentecost, the day in the church year when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus' disciples. At King of Peace, as with many other churches, it's a day for the congregation to all wear red, the color associated with the Holy Spirit because of the "tongues of fire" seen over the heads of the disciples on Pentecost (readings for this weekend are online here: Pentecost. We'll also have a covered dish lunch to follow our 10 a.m. worship tomorrow. In the meantime, The Rev. Rob Lord has been thinking through Pentecost at his blog, A New and Unending Kind of Life.

Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, once said, “only a fool would pray for the Holy Spirit” and then went on to say “only fools for Christ do”. To ask for the Holy Spirit may indeed be a dangerous thing. But to experience it we must ask for it. We must be willing to abandon ourselves to it. We must begin by an acceptance that the Spirit is not somewhere ‘out there’ or in some Never Never Land; but here, waiting to be invited in. The distance between us and the Kingdom of God is but a thin film that can easily be penetrated - if we intentionally seek to do so. Sadly, most of us intentionally seek other things...

In my own life, the Spirit comes not only in the "rushing mighty wind" of felt presence, but also in the still, soft dew, of waiting in silence and solitude, the lifeline of my relationship with the Lord.

Veni Sancti Spiritus - the ancient prayer and chant of the Church, is answered in so many suprising and generous ways, when we pay attention to our desire and thirst for the living God.

Are you willing to pray: Come Holy Spirit?