Let a New Wind Blow

The last Sunday of this month, Christians everywhere will be celebrating the feast of Pentecost. This is the feast that commemorates the giving of the Holy Spirit to the Church. There are two stories that speak to this event: one in John’s gospel, where Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and the other in Acts, where Luke tells us about the disciples gathered in the upper room, where all of a sudden a strong wind blows while tongues of flame dance on each person’s head.

At the conclusion of the Acts story, the disciples burst out of the room and bravely begin to spread the good news, while at the conclusion of the story from John’s gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples again one week later, and they are still locked behind closed doors, timid and afraid.

As we approach this feast, how will the gift of the Spirit provoke us? In light of recent and not so recent events—the horrific massacre at Virginia Tech, the ongoing daily slaughter that has become Iraq, the shame of Darfur, and the continuing shame of so many children in New York State going to bed hungry every night—shall this wonderful, animating gift from God provoke us to some kind of meaningful action?

Perhaps it is easier to give in to the numbing, constant, 24-hour news cycles on cable TV or the Internet—to give in and be desensitized to the horrors of hunger, poverty, and violence, timidly accepting these as an unholy trinity that accompanies us and our children throughout this life.

In his book Mysterium Coniunctionis, C.G. Jung wrote, “The unconscious is both good and evil and yet neither, the matrix of all potentialities.” My understanding of Spirit is that it animates you and me. It quickens our hearts and minds and reaches into the well of our unconscious to harness our unique potential for shaping the world away from that unholy trinity towards the One that is perfect community.

In the animation of Spirit, we become fire racing across the world and burning away the dross of violence, hoarding, and greed. In the animation of the Spirit, we become a new wind, bringing new possibilities of peace and fortune to all people.

Yet Dr. Jung points out that the unholy trinity of hunger, poverty, and violence carries just as much potential as the desire of the One who seeks to make all things new. Within you and me, the matrix of potential awaits an animating breath, a quickening flame. That flame and breath can come twisted from that old tyrant, the ego, in the service of the unholy trinity. Or a new wind can stir in our hearts—a fire that consumes only the dross can burn—and you and I can receive the Holy Spirit and turn loose on the world the incredible potential of Love.

Joel t