Inspired By Fire

a devotional for summer

Photo by Andy Tang on Unsplash

Thank you for joining us! Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:

Let me first say, it was SO tough to pick just one comment from last week—all of your comments and discussions were so very insightful! Thank you! But this week I’ve decided to share this comment, which Scoot left on our latest essay:

“All good things come from God. This includes the overtly spiritual things like Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving, works of mercy, etc; it also includes a warm summer day, spring rain, doing a good job at work, appreciating a good meal, laughing at a good joke. God is in all of it. Looking for God in all of these things--looking for God in *all things*-- is the beginning of making everything we do a prayer.”

Love this, Scoot! Scoot is a Catholic writer who runs two Substacks: The Peasant Times-Dispatch and a brand new one celebrating languages called Gibberish! Check them out!

If you want a chance to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!

Now, on with this week’s devotional…

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inspired by fire
of a different kind
the spirits flutter
all over
the yard;

ember-throated hummingbirds,
coal-headed juncos,
sapsuckers 
and robins
with snips of red flame
at their breasts,

and the jays, 
blue-crested
and apostolic

cackling over the garden
in tongues
I do not speak;

pinning me severely
with a gaze that asks:

when will you hear
the gospel
we preach? 

The Holy Spirit is a bit of a mysterious figure, but His actions can be tracked throughout Scripture if seen in the right light. He is the movement of God, the inspiration of humans, the wisdom and the conscience, the gifts, the fruit. And Pentecost, which the church celebrated over the weekend, is the celebration of the Holy Spirit’s 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.

In the five wooded acres where we live, we are blessed with birds. Lots of birds. Some residents, and some visitors. Songbirds, raptors, thrushes, woodpeckers, pigeons, waterfowl, corvids, owls, migrators…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 pictured as a bird, a dove.

I like to think of the Spirit as a fluttering thing. 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 like the divine moments you connect with a wild bird: their curious head movements, their quick heartbeats, their piercing eye contact. Everything about them says Messenger from Heaven, emissary, muse. The first awake in the morning, and the last to sleep.

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 you can 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.

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