I’ve been thinking about the Spirit a lot lately. In my case I mean the Holy Spirit, in the Christian tradition, as I’ll explain. But you may understand Spirit in a different way. (Sometimes I do.)
I’ve been asked to think and write about the Holy Spirit lately for one of my current faith formation curriculum contracts. I’m writing lesson objectives for children, one of which relates the text to where we are in the liturgical season of the church calendar. I’ve been working on summer sessions in the season after Pentecost. So for every session—week after week—I’ve written something that starts like: “Children will know that we are in the season after Pentecost, when we remember…something about the Holy Spirit.”
I try to relate what I say about the Spirit with whatever the rest of the week’s text and lesson will be about. It has meant a good bit of thinking about the Spirit, and what children need to know about her. It’s also been what I too need to recall with hope—week after week—when the news just keeps coming.
- We remember how the Spirit is a gift to all of us.
- We remember how the Spirit gathers communities together.
- We remember how the Spirit enables us to live transformed lives.
- We remember how the Spirit gives us courage to work for justice.
- We remember how the Spirit helps us pray when we have no words.
When I have no words, I sometimes find the Spirit at work in poetry. This week the gift came from Jane Kenyon, in a poem I read on the Salt blog.
a poem
Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks —by Jane Kenyon I am the blossom pressed in a book, found again after two hundred years. . . . I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper.... When the young girl who starves sits down to a table she will sit beside me. . . . I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . . I am water rushing to the wellhead, filling the pitcher until it spills. . . . I am the patient gardener of the dry and weedy garden. . . . I am the stone step, the latch, and the working hinge. . . . I am the heart contracted by joy. . . . the longest hair, white before the rest. . . . I am there in the basket of fruit presented to the widow. . . . I am the musk rose opening unattended, the fern on the boggy summit. . . . I am the one whose love overcomes you, already with you when you think to call my name. . . .
a writing prompt
Find something in the poem that speaks to you. A word, an image, a phrase. Start there, and see where your words take you.
Perhaps the Spirit—however you understand her—will speak as you write.
