Day of Pentecost (Year 4, NL)

It is clear in Acts 2 that a party is taking place—that dreams and visions are not meant to be dreamt alone.

The hyperbole, violence, and abrupt scene changes in Matthew’s parable of the wedding feast have driven most interpreters to treat the story allegorically—thereby turning it from a dangerous puzzle to a reassuring message in code.

I learned many Bible stories by watching movies in Sunday school. They were those old-fashioned movies, shown on a reel-to-reel projector, that tried to portray the stories as some Cecil B. DeMille wannabe imagined they took place. They were seldom more than a few steps grander than the local Christmas pageant; most of the disciples basically wore fancy bathrobes.

The Pentecost movie was dramatic.

We may experience division in our cries to God, hearing only what’s loud right next to us. But God hears us as one human family, crying out for blessing.

Painter Sawai Chinnawong saturates the outpouring of the Spirit with the colors Thai art traditionally associates with the holy.

One of my favorite confessions of sin is from a short poem called "Thread," by Dan Chiasson. "I am frayed where it would be highly useful," he writes, "to make a point."

Many people, perhaps most, are at least vaguely aware of one of the consequences of human sin.

Compared to other attributes we assign to God, cherishing has received little attention. It’s easily absorbed into the broader category of love. Yet cherishing is a specific kind of love—one the inspires deep commitment.

It’s been seven years, and I cannot access Jesus' word of peace. The tears still sting and slosh over my pail of remorse.

For my money, John’s is the only Gospel in which Jesus seems really lonely.

Back in the dark ages of the 20^th century, I remember an ad for the Yellow Pages that urged, “Let your fingers do the walking.” Now that texting has become the preferred means of communication, it seems our fingers actually do the talking.

I’ve been thinking about the complexity of communication with God, especially the challenge of praying at times when words are hard to come by. In response to such a dilemma, Paul essentially tells the Romans to let the Spirit do the talking.

Our brains are wired to allow us to read each other's minds, to feel each other's person.

With every cycle of our respiratory systems, we are sustained by the same intimate inspiration God exhaled into Adam’s muddy lungs. That breath permeates every cell of our being, nose to toes, invigorating our bodies and minds and souls until it is ready to be released, silently, from the same nostrils through which it came.

This is as ordinary as oxygen and carbon dioxide, and as extraordinary as spirit and miracle.