Photo by Graddes/Unsplash
It's Friday May 17th...and we've been praying together for 7 evenings. It's not too late to join us tonight at 7:30PM EDT. Click here for the link. Click here for the prayer texts.
Enter the garden with me, won't you? You see a photo of it above...dappled sunlight, lush plants and the fountain. There's no one there, and yet the place is redolent with a sense of the holy. There's a kind of hush in the place, the kind of hush that holds the prayers of many, the hopes of even more, the weariness of some and the wonder of others. Linger there with us.
We are pulled into this hush. For the Pentecost Vigil Project Team, it's the hush of waiting for the mighty wind of the Spirit. It's the hush that holds wonder, curiosity, smidges of impatience and doubt. "How long, O Lord"...we wonder. And in that hush, we hear the Lord say, "Remain here with me."
Like those disciples in the Garden in Jesus' story, we find ourselves fatigued. We find ourselves overcome by the unknown and suddenly we succumb to the hush and we sleep. But deep within we hear the Spirit call out, "Awake O Sleeper!" We brush the sleep from our eyes, and look around at the beauty, feel the peace, and see others who are vigiling with us, however unevenly.
During these days of constant prayer for the coming of the Spirit, I've had a chance to walk in my own gardens, to see the new life bursting forth from now-warming soil, and to turn over that soil so that it can receive new seeds. Gardening takes waiting and watering, pruning and pinching, shoveling and shaking, weeding and more waiting. But there's a precious hush in the garden: the hush of promise, the hush of anticipation and the hush of memory. There will be flowers and herbs and vegetables...there WILL be, for this is the promise of Spring and the bounty of Summer.
Just like the hush of the garden in Spring, so we are in this period of vigiling. We are at work but we wait. We are at work learning about how the Holy Spirit is moving, and honong our spirit-hearts. Join us for these last two nights of our novena, as we continue this work!
We are working at the art of listening heart-to-heart, respecting differences and holding ourselves together by living in the Spirit. Read some of our blogs on listening here. Check out the fascinating research being done on listening in this podcast from Hidden Brain here.
In this hushed garden of prayer, we are also working to help one another identify and remove the barriers to synodality. Like weeding the garden so the new life can flourish, we need to do the same within ourselves and within our parishes. Take a look at one weeding tool: a parish trust inventory. Examen prayers can help with this as well. Here's an introduction to this practice.
There is a kind of hush all over the world right now, the hush of the Upper Room before the mighty wind of Pentecost. It's a hush of vigiling, of active waiting, keeping holy space and time and working to create the conditions the Spirit needs to bring forth the new creation. Shhhh...can you hear it? It's the Lord telling us, "Remain here with me! I am sending the Spirit!"
May you each experience the wonder and awe of Pentecost: God-with-us in the Spirit!
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