Pentecost

Pentecost

“When the Day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven, there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.”—Acts 2:1-2.

“ … [Jesus] breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”   —John 20:22.

Barbara Brown Taylor1 describes two versions of Pentecost: the gentle breeze in John, as Jesus breathes into the few disciples fearfully gathered on the night of his resurrection, and the violent wind of Pentecost described in Acts, as the Holy Spirit sweeps in, with tongues of fire hovering over at least a hundred people.

The disciples at the gentle wind Pentecost are commissioned to take the Spirit out into the world. The ministry assigned to the violent wind disciples is to seek to fan the Spirit already present in the world. Taylor challenges us in our congregations to emulate the disciples in both Pentecost stories: those of the gentle breeze and those of the violent wind. Both groups are commissioned to find that Holy Spirit within themselves and others, and take it out of their churches and into the world.

The same is true of the Spirit, the Christ, within us. We are called to connect to that Spirit within us, then go out, and connect to the Christ in others. If we don’t, we are like the disciples in John’s scenario—locked up in a dark room for fear of losing what we have. Only when we connect our Spirit to the Christ in others do we know the peace, joy, and love we are seeking. Our view of God also becomes larger as we become aware of the magnitude of God’s creation and love.

Barbara Brown Taylor, “God’s Breath” in Journal for Preachers, Pentecost 2003, pp. 37-40.

Happy Pentecost.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Thank you for supporting our camp and conference center, Camp Mitchell, on top of Petit Jean Mountain, by buying this book in the daily series of writings for the liturgical year, A Daily Spiritual Rx for Ordinary Time: Readings from Pentecost to Advent. All proceeds from the books go to Camp Mitchell. If you like this book, could you briefly write a recommendation on its page on Amazon? https://smile.amazon.com/Daily-Spiritual-Ordinary-Time-Pentecost/dp/B08JLTZYGH/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=joanna+seibert+books&qid=1621104335&sr=8-1

 More thank-you’s than we can say!!!

Promises and Fruit of the Spirit

Promises and Fruit

 Promises of 12-Step Recovery and Fruit of the Spirit

“1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. 2. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. 3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. 4. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. 5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. 6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. 7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. 8. Self-seeking will slip away. 9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. 10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. 11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. 12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”—The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous (Alcoholic Anonymous World Services, Inc., 4th edition, 2001).

Keller Dining Hall Camp Mitchell

Do you see any similarity between the promises of a twelve-step program and the nine fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)? Paul writes that we know and feel our connection to the Spirit, the God within us, if the consequence, the fruit, of what we do produces “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” The twelve-step promises and the fruit of the Spirit can both serve as guides—benchmarks indicating whether we are indeed on the right track—if we are connected to the God of our understanding, the Christ, the Spirit within us. When two disciplines tell me a similar truth, I begin to believe and pay attention to this truth.

We are especially called to look for the fruit of the Spirit as we approach Pentecost. The fruit are our guides, our mentors, telling us that we are staying connected to the Spirit, the God, within us. The promises are also indicators that those in recovery are staying connected to their higher power.

Joanna https://www.joannaseibert.com/

Silence, Secret Gardens

Silence, Secret Easter Garden

 “What will your secret garden look like? The point is to begin to slow down your life and focus your attention. Listen, and in the quiet, you will hear the direction of your heart. The garden of silence is always there for us. Patiently waiting.” —Anne D. LeClaire in Listening Below the Noise: The Transformative Power of Silence (Harper Perennial, 2009).

langley in secret garden of former college of preachers

One of my favorite young adult novels is The Secret Garden, by the American-English author Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett, who also wrote Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess. The Secret Garden tells of an unloved ten-year-old English girl sent to live with her grieving uncle in his remote country home on the bleak moors of Yorkshire after her parents die. Her unhappiness, aloneness, and the heartache and isolation of those around her heal when she begins caring for and restoring a secret garden on the manor house grounds.

I watched the 1993 British film starring Maggie Smith with my daughter and granddaughters, and later saw the play with my granddaughter. This story resonates with the child within us, the creative part of us—the side we so quickly abandon for more important things, which is a significant connection to the divine within us.

The Secret Garden is another telling of how nature’s sounds, smells, and sights can silence and calm the grownup “wounded committee” in our heads—and heal and transform our inner child. We all should have a secret garden, a place where we can gently reconnect with the God within ourselves and the divine in each other. It represents a safe place where the presence of the Spirit is more easily felt, as described in Psalm 32:7: “You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.”

Talking about our secret garden, our hiding place—often a place of silence—can be an opening to the divine in spiritual direction.

So many friends during the past pandemic planted new gardens. Nurseries and garden centers were thriving. So, as we continue to plant, let us also contemplate our own secret garden, where a very holy part of us lives.

ann gornatti’s secret garden

Joanna. Joannaseibert.com. https://www.joannaseibert.com/