on the fiftieth day the Spirit took wing and dropped a glass of flame where it shattered, spread sweet perfume and light over the faces looking up; look! look there, at the wings! each face illuminated each eye aglow the air filled with tales and fluttering wingbeats and flickering flame. they looked up to watch the Spirit as She passed; turning the silent and the fearful and the broken and the grieving into storytellers.
In the five wooded acres where we live, we are blessed with birds. Lots and lots of birds. Some are residents, and some are visitors. Songbirds, raptors, thrushes, woodpeckers, pigeons, waterfowl, corvids, owls, migratorsā¦their seasonal movements are part of our calendar, now, and their songs and rhythms accompany us throughout our day.
And when I see them, I think of the symbolism of the Holy Spirit, often illustrated as a bird, a dove.
The Holy Spirit is a bit of a mysterious figure, but His presence and actions can be tracked throughout Scripture, like the marks of tiny clawprints in the snow. He is the movement of God, the inspiration of humans, the wisdom and the conscience, the gifts, the fruit. And Pentecost or Whitsunday, which the church celebrated over the weekend, is the celebration of the Holy Spiritās arrival in the records of church history as tongues of fire, descending on the apostles and inspiring them to move beyond themselves and their human frailties. To be more than they could ever be on their own.
I like to think of the Spirit as a fluttering thing, something that flies and hovers and occasionally lands. Something that is intricately beautiful if you look closely enough. Something that stops you in your tracks and moves you to spontaneous delighted laughter or expectant silence.
Connecting with Him is very like the divine moments when you connect with a wild bird: their curious head movements, their quick heartbeats, their piercing eye contact. Everything about our feathered companions says Messenger from Heaven, emissary, muse. Delicate, and yet deeply resilient. Able to touch the clouds, and just as willing to perch on earth, moving among us in their subtle, sacred ways.
This week, just like every week, we have the opportunity to spot God out of the corner of our eye, moving and alive in a way only He can be. Perhaps this week you may spot His Spirit in the gaze of something small: a feathered thing, a sometimes forgotten thing, a thing by which we can learn the intimacy and subtlety of grace.
As poet Emily Dickinson famously wrote:
āHopeā is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -
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"I like to think of the Spirit as a fluttering thing, something that flies and hovers and occasionally lands. Something that is intricately beautiful if you look closely enough. "
These are great lines.
I love this: "the Spirit as a fluttering thing, something that flies and hovers and occasionally lands." I'm not a religious person, "only" spiritual, and I enjoy your devotionals so much because they speak to more than a church-going crowd. The spirit, yes, that thing with feathers, fluttering, elusive. Thank you!