Pentecost

Although I have absented myself from traditional church routine these past months, I find that I am a bit hardwired to the "church year". There are days that I can move throughout life without giving church a second thought. That is not to say that I am not thinking about God or praying on some level, indeed, God is like an under the skin, constantly active underlying hum of my awareness most of the time. Probably all of the time. I say most of the time because there are times that I experience "the hum" as more back burner than others. I think that is how God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, works in us. A constant feed that we can consciously tap into or simply open to. So, today is one of those high holy Christian church observances, Pentecost, which is typically recognized as the birth of the Christian church. I haven't always known this. I've attended church most of my life. Around age 6 I began attending a Pentecostal church with our neighbors, the family of my playmates. I was Sunday schooled for years in that tradition, but I don't think I learned about Pentecost. I moved on from that tradition to a Baptist tradition -- American, missionary and southern-- where I was Sunday schooled and bible studied and sermoned at -- but do not recall learning the significance of Pentecost. It was only during my journey through Methodism -- several different flavors of Methodism-- and my seminary studies that the full import of Pentecost pierced the veil of my understanding. And it is only during this Sabbath rest from church participation that I get the irony.

It is curious to me that we (we the church) observe this holy hush period of reflection called Advent leading up to the traditional observance of the birth of Jesus. Then there is this six weeks of reflection on sacrifice leading up to the traditional observance of Jesus' death and Resurrection. Now we are at the traditional observance of the post resurrection experience called Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit, the promised comforter, teacher, truth revealer, power giving, spirit of God descended on Jesus' followers who were waiting, as instructed, huddled together in fear of the Roman and Jewish authorities, in the upper room. Waiting.  Praying.  Waiting. Praying.  Waiting.  Praying. Tradition says, for about fifty days. The book of Acts chronicles the final descending of the Holy Spirit into that upper room as a rather violent, windy, fire like experience that left those in that room forever changed. So changed that not only did their language change, but their understanding of other languages changed. They waited. They prayed. Until their change came through a Holy visitation.

Such a beautiful thing to me is church tradition. The irony to me is that for all the acknowledgements of the day, the many days, the meaning of them, the hope of them, seems ........ lost in the observation. It is also ironic that only during this self-imposed exile, during which I am compelled to wait and pray, that I get this.