Sitting with the Sacred

No, this isn’t a post about the band.

This is a post about “The Coming of the Spirit.” That’s the title the Bible I use gives to the first story presented in Acts Chapter 2. It’s a story I’ve heard many times, and most reflections I’ve heard or read about it focus on the effect of this event on the apostles. The affect the Spirit had on the apostles didn’t grab my attention this time, though. What I zeroed in on were the sensory details used to describe the Spirit. Acts says “And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them” (2:2-3). The “driving wind” and the “tongues of fire” got me thinking about the many effects wind and fire have on us here on Earth and how some of those effects can remind us of what God does.

I’ll start with wind. It can generate energy and can send some of our balloons, kites, and ships whichever way it blows. Along with water, it can reshape the natural landscapes in which we live. It can rip apart and topple structures we build, especially if we don’t or can’t use the sturdiest materials and designs. Wind outlasts all temporary construction. But it’s gentlest form is breath.

We start fires to generate warmth and coziness. They melt what we can’t bend without them. They weld things together. We will also use fire (or more commonly the heat it generates) to purify water and instruments, to protect ourselves from disease-causing microbes. It changes how even compounds and elements react. Its heat can change the nature of matter. It turns ice to water, and water to gas. It can both solidify and consume the work of human hands. Sometimes we want it to consume the work of those hands so we can get rid of what we don’t want. This article from Science says that, sometimes, fires clear away “dead litter on the forest floor.” The article continues:

The above quotation illustrates that the analogy between the Holy Spirit and wind and fire is far from perfect. I don’t believe in a Holy Fire that burns “too long,” drying out creation so that it can’t recover. I don’t believe the Holy Spirit destroys us. On the contrary, the Spirit I believe in is all about giving life, and helping us “have it more abundantly” — (John 10:10). In its ability to refresh, I would characterize the Holy Spirit as being like water as much as fire. And God created wind, fire, and water with certain characteristics and ways of interacting with each other.

It is we who put ourselves in the path of the elements because they offers many gifts that help us establish and continue our communities. But proximity to these powerful gifts is also also one of the ways we’re vulnerable. And we contribute to the danger of their power because we who sometimes overuse, misuse and abuse what is good, including natural gifts.

In doing so, we can contribute to the destruction of ourselves and each other. Or we can use the gifts of that Spirit to allow ourselves to be reshaped for the better when nature’s power and/or human choices remind us of the frailty earthly life.

Works cited

The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.

Supriya, Lakshmi. “Ecosystems could once bounce back from wildfires. Now, they’re being wiped out for good” Science, AAAS, 19 Dec. 2017, https://www.science.org/content/article/ecosystems-could-once-bounce-back-wildfires-now-they-re-being-wiped-out-good.