The View from the Rectory - May 2021
Dear friends,
In May we celebrate Pentecost. Pentecost is when Jesus's disciples experienced the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2). They experienced the Holy Spirit with a mighty rushing wind and fire and with the transforming of lives. It enabled the disciples to tell many others about God, empowering them to speak to those they had not had the chance to talk with before.
Fire can be a wonderful thing - warming us, giving us the heat needed for food and drink and washing, and even offering us light at times. Fire can also though, be destructive, burning all in its path. Sometimes we might have experienced fire like this, maybe personally, or maybe watching events unfold in the News. It can be painful to watch. We might respond with sorrow and tears. At the end dust and ash is left, though often we try to re-build what was there or to put something else appropriate in its place. We try to learn from such destructive fire too, such as what we can do to prevent it again. We try, as best we can, to move on, to re-build and re-start our lives too. So after fire, new life can come, yes altered and transformed, but beauty coming from brokenness.
This reminds me of Lent, Easter and Pentecost. During Lent and Holy Week we wait and we watch. During Easter
and Pentecost we are shocked and amazed. The disciple's lives were transformed by Easter and Pentecost too, just as our lives can also be transformed and shaped by God. We too receive the Holy Spirit. God sends us even more of God's own self and this shapes our whole being. Lent, Easter and the wind and fire of Pentecost, remind us that even in the times we feel sad or in pain, our lives too can be resurrected and transformed. We can open ourselves up, expectant and ready, for God's spirit to transform us, and through us, the world.
This also continues to remind me of the world we currently live in. The sorrow and pain of the pandemic is everywhere to see and experience, yet somehow we are slowly emerging from this, albeit changed. Our world is altered by this tragic event, and though things seem bleak, we know our world can be re-built and our lives re-started. Perhaps through this sadness, in the midst of ashes, we can begin to transform ourselves, our lives and our world for the better. We can seek to open ourselves up to God and to move ever nearer to God's will for our lives and for our world. It is a chance for us all to be resurrected and transformed, for us to be open to God moving in our lives, and for us to be even more aware of those around us and their needs.
Keep taking care everyone.
With warmest wishes and prayers,
Rev'd George