[ hold :: this space ]

i’m meant to be writing deeply meaningful and moving words about pentecost for the flurry of worship moments i’m responsible for in the next few weeks. unfortunately, i can’t move beyond cynicism. perhaps i need a day of detoxing from prison statistics.

who would willingly pray for you to come, spirit?

if you could keep it to a minimum, perhaps:
those little flames are fine -
the fires that warm our hands,
the beautiful flames of a flickering candle
that cast just enough light on the dark places
for us to see our path through,
but not enough for us to see our surroundings.
but to pray for the flames that destroy the walls we have carefully built
in our churches and our lives,
that will change the landscape of the world
as we know it -
i don’t think so.

if you could keep the flames to a minimum
so we could put them out in time for morning tea
that would be helpful.
and if you could warn us about that great wind,
in time for us to take shelter inside
that would make this all much easier.

thanks.

if you like, spirit, come early.
come this week.
feel free to ignore the lectionary
and church calendars
to pre-empt our children’s talks,
our well-designed installations
and the video loops we’ve been working on for months.

trick us.
come now.

be breath for a world that is gasping for air
and forgive us for thinking it can wait.

passion and destruction

fires fed by the same oxygen:

desire that is all consuming
and relentless

how do we know when it’s you?

there were massive bushfires in victoria and tasmania over december and january. some of the fires are still burning - they’re in accessible land, they’ll burn themselves out when the rain is persistent and heavy enough.

during a news broadcast at the time the weather bureau were reporting that the temperature at the centre of the worst fires was about 1000 degrees celsius [that’s over 1800 degrees fahrenheit. The spokesperson continued to say that at temperatures that extreme, fires create their own weather.

i remember thinking that i hoped no-one grabbed hold of that quote and used it at pentecost. it’s so tempting. it’s a wonderful image. except when it’s real.

we create wonderful fires in worship at pentecost - with bowls of kittylitter and meths, fans and cellophane, masses of candles and red fabric, etc. etc. We use them with meditations about how the spirit is like the fire: it takes all before it. We speak of the spirit as sparks of love, of fanning the flames of faithful passion. But the reality is that fire is also an image of relentless, indiscriminating destruction…. of sheer, absolute terror… of ruined lives and communities.

i remember going to a baptism soon after the massive tsunami in 2004. i flinched at the images of water that were used… at the cruelness that this same water which blesses, destroys… i think there’ll be many flinching at images of fire during pentecost this year. which one’s god? the fire that warms, or the fire that destroys, indiscriminately? the water that cools or the water that consumes all in its path?

i think if i were to be designing worship for pentecost this year i’d want to ask those questions and let there be no answers. it’s not that we have to ‘redeem’ the image of fire to use it at pentecost, it’s that we have to hold both realities about fire in tension.

i wrote this for a reflection space just after the tsunami…

In the beginning the earth was under a roaring ocean

and then the waters of chaos
became waters of life:
fresh water
sea water
promising life,
bringing life,
holding life

until the tide turned.
And the water that quenched thirst
became the water that drowned.
Water that cleaned,
submerged.
Water that soothed,
flooded.
Water that brought life
became water that destroyed life.

holy
drowning
stagnant
living

it’s all water.

forgive us when we don’t know which is you, God.

actually, your spirit is not really like a flickering candle sitting on the altar, which we’ve protected from scorching with a heat proof mat
you burn with irrepressible, ferocious passion.

in truth, your spirit has little in common with the gentle breeze from the fan fluttering the orders of service as it rotates from the front pews during the children’s talk
we can barely stand upright in the face of your love.

luckily, your spirit barely resembles a helium filled red balloon, rising, just out of reach, to taunt us as it rests against the church ceiling
you would subsume us in the unrelenting hold of your peace.

we think we have you nailed
in our fire resistant,
cyclone-proof,
red cloth swathed metaphors

thank god our inadequacy defining you has never stopped you yet.

spirit:

maker of chaos
resister of order
she who takes on the world -
breathe.

wreak havoc in complacency
upturn smugness and self satisfaction
defy authorities that deflate
challenge all powers that squeeze
the hope out of your people
and your church

and breathe life back in
to a world gasping.

breathe, spirit.

breathe.