Blog - Pentecost

After a week in this heart-home, my husband and I just left Regensburg, Germany.

My copy of Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes this World: Mischief, Myth, and Art has almost as many Post-It notes sticking out from its pages as it has pages.

Today, the Church celebrates Pentecost.

Dear all,

Do you ever find yourself with a tune in your mind?
You’re not even conscious that you’ve got a song going on your soul, and then suddenly you hear your lips hum, your mouth sing, or even your fingers tapping out the rhythm of the beat.
I’m willing to admit that it happens to me, but I am not willing to admit how often.
On occasion, when I discover that I’ve got some notes and lyrics in my mind…and others external to me are noticing…it’s because a certain apparently random tune was in fact triggered by a word or a phrase or an event: when I’m standing before an open fridge, an exasperated, “I’m all out of milk,” becomes “I’m All Out of Love,” or while making stew I discover myself singing our family favorite lullaby “Little Potato,” or (back in the days when my beloved baseball was actually played), when I’m looking for the weather radio to take into my garden so I can hear the Minnesota Twins play (sigh), I discover that I’m humming “Brown Eyed Girl,” which, by all informed accounts, is the best song ever, and while it may have overtly nothing to do with a baseball (though I’m sure that the ‘stadium’ which is mentioned is obviously one built for baseball and no other) has everything to do with baseball, not to mention young love, the best of which has to do with baseball.
But the other day, I woke up with Tracy Chapman in my head.
 Straight away, at 5:37, eyes opened and there she was.
But because it was 5:37, it took me about 15 minutes into the day and a couple of sips of my coffee to realize that she was singing me into the day, and quite possibly into a new world.

“Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God’s new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet.”

The state of American politics is in quite a state these days, isn’t it.

Rev. Larry Strenge is a friend of mine, I am honored to say.

Dear all,

“We pray for the Holy Spirit to come, and then, when she does, we want her to go home!”

“How is the Holy Spirit found in everyday life?”

The Spirit is a tough one for many of us (northern European) Protestants to wrap our minds around..or to be wrapped around by, frankly (pardon the dangling prepositions).

adventure (n.) early 13c., auenture “that which happens by chance, fortune, luck,” from O.Fr. aventure (11c.) “chance, accident, occurrence, event, happening,” from L. adventura (res) “(a thing) about to happen,” from adventurus, future participle of advenire “to come to, reach, arrive at,” from ad- “to” (see ad-) + venire “to come” (see venue). Meaning developed through “risk/danger” (a trial of one’s chances) and “perilous undertaking” (early 14c.) and thence to “a novel or exciting incident” (1560s). The -d- was restored 15c.-16c. Venture is a 15c. variant. As a verb, c.1300, “to risk the loss of;” early 14c. “to take a chance.”