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Lilies from Heaven

Birds and the Holy Spirit

9/29/2021

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​This writer has been thinking about the Holy Spirit for the past few days. I reread the Acts chapter 2 in order to prepare for a Sunday School Lesson next month. I thought I had a rather good grasp on the lesson, but who can really explain the Holy Spirit?


Insights about the Holy Spirit came from almost anywhere. Mine came from looking out the window as I was finishing the lesson.

I was a little transfixed by the grace and precision in how the birds navigated the open sky. A magnificient flock of birds  - at least a hundred of them - were whirling and reeling though the bright blue yonder like a three dimensional chorus line of high flying dancers.

How do they do that? How do they react quickly enough to the single bird next to them to keep their perfect pattern in sync, and avoid crashing into one another on their well-timed, hairpin turns?

It turns out they don't. They're not reacting to the next bird at all.

They're riding the current of air and sensing its movement, then anticipating the resulting movement needed to mirror it seconds before it arrives. All of them. All at once. In advance. If they didn't--no mid-air ballet. No in-sync contagions. No resulting, breathtaking beauty. Just aerial chaos.

More and more, I want to calibrate my movements to the current of the Spirit. To sense where he's moving, and get there before it's too late.

More and more, I want to anticipate the power and beauty of his invisible flow and put myself in a position to be moved by it.

And I'm praying that as I do, I will be better in sync with my brothers and sisters who are doing the same...in tandem with the saints in my community of faith who are anticipating that same wind along with me.

Wouldn't it really be something if we anticipated and were so moved by the Spirit, that those around us would marvel at the collective, coordinated beauty of the body of Christ and wonder,"How do they do that?"

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.”

(Romans 8:14, NASB)
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Speak the Truth in Love

9/1/2021

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Love is the central virtue of the Christian life and it should be the motivation for everything we do. I had a great question posed to me this week when I was doing a book review for a newsletter that I work on. How do we argue in a loving way? Is that even possible?

​I think it is going to take a drastic reframing of our practice of argumentation. We should not attack our opponents. We do not have demolish or shoot down an argument.

I understand that there were problems with this before the pandemic started. It just seems worse because the mean spirited words are hurled, leaked, broadcast, muttered and tweeted online. And it's not just politicians who are the problem. The meanness is trickling down to every day discourse between ordinary people.

I witnessed a less than lovely exchange in a retail store.  Two women were shopping with two small children in tow--one a young boy of about three and the other a baby girl. The little boy was standing stock-still, staring at a broken bottle of perfume at his feet. As an employee was moving in to clean things up, she saw the children's mom had placed the baby girl on one of the store's rolling stock carts.  

The employee said, "Oh please don't do that--she might fall."

The older woman said, "She is not going to let her fall."

The employee said, "Yes, but that's dangerous--she can't be there." 

The woman said more loudly this time (as the mother held her daughter on the cart with one hand and the little boy wandered off on his own) "She is not going to fall, her mom is watching her."

The employee tried again: "Yes, ma'am, but we can't have her up there for liability reasons."

Then came this angry retort: "You don't care about the baby. You just don't want to get sued. You think she can't watch her own baby."

When the young employee tried once more to  politely explain herself, the older woman cut her short: "I know what you care about...and I don't want to hear another word from you. This conversation is over."  

Oh my! Unfortunately, this is also what has happened over Facebook, Twitter, KakaoTalk, and other social media applications.

I know that sometimes we actually feel better when we have told someone exactly what we think. But at what cost? 

The woman in the store could have been way more gracious to the young employee who was communicating a rule that the company she worked for wanted enforced. She seemd angry from the beginning of the exchange.


I can't change the world, the toxic climate in halls of power, or even the attitude of a single shopper. But in a world where meanness has become common, I can choose love instead.  

I can choose gracious responses. Acts of kindness. A caring word. Eye contact. A smile. A listening ear. These I can do. And so can you.

Choose love even when you do not want to!
 

 
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