Superheros and Spirit Flames

Lately I've been thinking about courage, vulnerability, and love.  This weekend there was a beautiful example of this and it was one of the best moments of the entire weekend.  It was truly amazing after a wonderful sermon pertaining to the third arrival of love.  In short, WE are the third arrival of love!  Interestingly enough it fit in really well with Sunday's sermon, as it too referenced the Holy Spirit.

If I could, I would be like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, though for this day and age it would be the pastors.  I love what they have to say each week, and it's like I'm parched for water- what they give is metaphorically water for the soul.  Kind of like that living water mentioned by Jesus.  It's a sad moment when sermons end because I want to keep sitting there, taking everything in, and listening.  In those moments I feel connected to the spirit and can feel the love permeating the air.  I am surrounded by people I love and who love me.  It's hard to leave that.

It was Pentecost on Sunday- it's a day in the church calendar where we often talk about the Spirit coming down as "tongues of flame" and anointing (I like to imagine sitting on top of) the disciples heads.  It enabled them to speak in languages other than their own (in this instance) in order for others who came to hear what the disciples message was from around the world to understand what was being said.  I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have been a disciple who experienced that happening- also what it would have been like as an onlooker to the whole experience.  Perhaps it's as one of the pastor's mentioned yesterday, and the onlookers thought the disciples had consumed too much wine even though it was supposedly early in the day/morning.  What would we have thought as onlookers?  I wonder if it was a vulnerable thing for the disciples to do?  I mean, what if you or I all of a sudden could do something that was previously thought impossible?  Sort of like how when superheros discover they have powers.

Speaking of superheros, yesterday I was watching an episode of Supergirl, a series on Netflix.  In it there is a character who is struggling to find her voice and speak up about what she's passionate about.  She is a reporter working for a rather large and prominent newspaper company, and at one point in the episode Supergirl, aka Kara Danvers, listens to this girl give a pitch about an article she feels passionately about writing.  Kara tells her to do the exact same thing in pitching it to her boss.  When the time comes for the girl to speak up and give the pitch she doesn't.  Kara finds her later and the girl tells Kara that the reason she didn't speak up was because she was afraid of making waves and what that might mean.  In the end Kara tells her to push through the fear and to make waves anyway, and the girl by the end of the episode succeeds in speaking up and out about a thing she is passionate for and care a lot about.  For those of you who are curious, it's in Season 4 Episode 1 of Supergirl.

I bring up that episode because I resonated so deeply with that character and their plight.  Oftentimes I struggle to use my own voice.  It takes a certain amount of courage and vulnerability to do so, and those who do use their voice are brave.  I want to be like them.  I have a voice and I want to use it.  I want to be as brave as those who risk looking like a fool in order to tell what they feel strongly about.

And then there's Saturday's message as a part of the series on the third arrival of love and Sunday's message about "the winds of change".  There's something truly beautiful about our being the third arrival of love, and it can also be a bit intimidating.  We are the embodiment of Christ's love lived out through how we see, hear, and love one another.  There is no "us versus them"- there is WE, and WE are called to living and being together, unified in one community.  If we are the third embodiment of love, and the winds of change are transforming us, bringing this sacred and holy flame of the spirit, how do we more fully live that out?  How we do that is to let the spirit transform us, gently and slowly, as we more fully become the embodiment of love?  I think it looks different for each of us.

It's a beautiful thing, to witness my friends and those around me living all of this out, bearing witness, and being courageous, open, and full of love for one another.  It gives me hope for the future.