Whispers, Buds and Blossoms

Perhaps more than any other year in recent memory,

our senses are primed and attuned to the changes in nature

announcing the coming of spring.

It can feel as if our life depends on the new life

that is awakened by shifting winds and greater light.

The changes in nature are often subtle at first

perhaps unrecognizable as we walk our familiar paths.

A bud here, an absent shadow there..

both the result of a change in warmth and light.

In the early days on the precipice of great transformation,

one must listen carefully

to the whispers of the wind

that invite the bud to blossom..

rising from its enclosed and sheltered appearance

transformed and transfigured by a light and warmth

that draws it into new life leaving behind a former way of being.

The Spirit of Life

calling the bud gently forth in the warmth of a new season

whispers that its only job is to blossom into the beautiful flower

it was created to be

playing its part in the symphony of God’s creative process.

Easter Season,

the endless invitation to live into new life,

appropriately ends with a beginning..

“On the day the Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

And there came a sound like the rush of a wind.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit

and began to speak

in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability.

And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered,

because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each”.

(Acts 2:1-2,4,6)

The Spirit of God filled

empowered and transformed 

those who patiently waited 

and carefully listened for it.

The Spirit gave the apostles,

those entrusted to embody

the Spirit of Love,

new words, phrases and images

to relate to people in a new way

that they could hear and understand.

The Spirit of God

opened eyes and hearts

to a new way of seeing and relating.

This new way was astonishingly personal

and above all it was inclusive.

The Spirit of Christ taught them

that “God shows no partiality” (Rom 2:11),

for God needs all to bloom in love for God’s love to transform the world.

God did not require those seeking

the Spirit of love, forgiveness and hope

to learn a new language

or to change who they were 

to hear and experience

the Spirit of encouragement and transformation.

They simply needed to open their hearts and minds

to a God that wanted to whisper gently in ways and words

they could understand

and to provide the warmth and light needed

to seek and bring forth something risen, transformed and transfigured

within themselves.

The Spirit arrives to encourage transformation

to draw us forward ..

to bloom and become more fully

who we are meant to be

so that the Spirit of new life and love may blossom everywhere.

“The first peace, which is the most important,

is that which comes within

the souls of people when they realize

their relationship

their oneness

with the universe and all its powers,

and when they realize

at the center of the universe

dwells the Great Spirit

and that its center is really everywhere

it is within each of us”

– Black Elk