When the Holy Spirit danced with me in my kitchen...

Today has been the feast of Pentecost. I’ve now done the whole set of not leading the major festivals of the Christian year! 

Two readings have been in my head today as the day has progressed. The first is the fun poem about divine unpredictability by Anthony Wilson:

When the Holy Spirit Danced With Me in My Kitchen 

the first thing I noticed was his arms,

thick and hairy like a bricklayer’s

with a tattoo of an anchor

as Churchill had.

‘Coming for a spin?’ he grinned,

in an accent more Geordie than Galilee,

and he whirled me

through tango, foxtrot and waltz

without missing a beat.

‘You’re good,’ I said.  ‘Thanks,’

he said, taking two glasses to the tap.

‘You’re not so bad yourself,

for someone with no sense of rhythm

and two left feet.’

He gave me a wink.

‘It’s all in the waist.

The movement has to start there

or it’s dead.’

‘You’ll find it applies to most things,’

he went on, grabbing the kettle.

‘Writing, cooking, kissing,

all the things you’re good at,

or think you are.’

He winked again.

‘You don’t mind me asking,’ I said,

‘but why are you here?’

‘I thought it was about time,’

he said. ‘I mean, you’ve been full stretch,

haven’t you, what with your job,

feeling like a taxi for the kids,

your family living far away,

and you ‘in your head’ all the time

as you said to someone last week.’

I looked at him and nodded.

‘Go on.’

‘I was going to.’

He got down some mugs.

‘Let’s say I was concerned about you.

The thing is, the three of us,

we like you a lot.

We think you’ve got real potential

as a human.  You’re kind and humorous.

You’re also a little scatty.

We like that.  By the way, that fish curry

you made on Saturday was first class.’

‘You know about that?’

‘Everything you get up to,’

he smiled.  ‘It’s nothing to panic about.

Really.  To tell you the truth

you could do with loosening up a little.

Try not beating yourself up the whole time.

A little less rushing everywhere

would do you good, too.’

‘I thought you might say that.’

‘Look at me,’ he said.

‘I came to say:

Keep Going, and Relax.

Also: keep things simple.

If you are doing one thing,

do that thing.  If you are talking

with someone, listen to them,

do not blame them for being hard work.

Write as if you were not afraid,

and love in this way too.

Be patient with everyone, especially

your relations, who (I can assure you)

think you are rather special.

Make big decisions slowly, and small decisions

fast.  Do not make bitterness your friend.

Pray (I will not mind if you use

made up words for this.)

Garrison was right: ‘Why

have good things you don’t use?’

What you have been given to do,

give yourself to it completely,

only by emptying yourself can you become full.’

We never made it to worship this morning. We read the Circuit plan and found a communion service but it looked dodgy when we arrived to find the car park empty! I tried the door. It was locked. I found out later they had decided to join another church for their service this morning so that’s why no one was there.

We did find worship this evening though in the Minster in Kings Lynn: a quiet healing service. Some went up for laying on of hands to be renewed by God’s spirit. A lady said to us afterwards, “couldn’t you feel the heat from the Vicar’s hands?” !!! 

When the first disciples gathered in Jerusalem the day the Spirit came on them, they had no idea what would become of them. Previously not very reliable, they became faithful witnesses of divine possibility. They went out into society convinced of their call to transform it. They had enough to be the Church...

As we left the Minster, there appeared a fabulous rainbow: the rainbow the sign that God’s final word is that it will be okay after all. 

The Spirit of God leads God’s people out on new journeys and to expect healing and peace and hope and to live his Kingdom now, even when that feels mad. We are at the moment discovering new roads, and after a week in a new place are beginning to see a future as we find God ahead of us. The second bit of writing I’ve thought about today speaks of that compulsion to go out, if the Spirit in us is real... It’s called For The Traveller, by John O’Donaghue. We look out and expect...

 Every time you leave home

Another road takes you

Into a world you were never in.

When you travel, you find yourself

Alone in a different way,

More attentive now

To the self you bring along,

Your more subtle eye watching

You abroad; and how what meets you

Touches that part of the heart

That lies low at home:

When you travel,

A new silence

Goes with you,

And if you listen,

You will hear

What your heart would

Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:

May you travel in an awakened way,

Gathered wisely into your inner ground;

That you may not waste the invitations

Which wait along the way to transform you.