Because of the generosity of some dear friends of ours, we have had the opportunity to make two trips to Cabo San Lucas.  I was very moved on the last day of our first trip in 2016, when we dined on the last night of our stay in Cabo at Sunset Point.  The glassed-in restaurant which sets over the Sunset Da Mona Lisa restaurant offers some of the most breathtakingly beautiful views of the arch and the Bay of Cabo San Lucas – all poised in the spectacular nightly show as the sun bows in reverence to another day of celebrating creation.

I recall more than once walking outside to not only see more clearly the view, but to also feel it.  The wind was as tremendous as the sight and, as I leaned into the gusting invisible force, I was mindful of how only a few years before this soothing and cleansing wind, picked up destructive handfuls of hurricane water and scoured this sublime landscape.  Creation, destruction, and beauty… the day opens and closes in wind and water.  No wonder these two forces of energy are used with reference to Spirit!

What are the limits of Spirit?  And what makes it holy?

The feast of Pentecost is the wonderful culmination of the 50-day long Easter season, but rather than closing Easter out, it actually further expands the dynamism of this perennial season’s life.  This mysterious and wonderful event is described in Acts 2:1-11 as magnificent, mysterious and also quite confusing.

“When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind… And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim…

At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd, but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded…”

The Spirit gathers and empowers us to speak in different tongues and even allows us to hear and resonate with the message in our own language.  This is very powerful, but it is also confusing and even frightening in a way.  The holiness of the experience of the Spirit seems to gather and unify but also destroy and confuse.

“…how does each of us hear them in his native language?”

It seems that inasmuch as we are brought together in relationship in this great gathering wind of the Holy Spirit, the clutching or clinging grasp that we sometimes have on our individualized lives is called into check.  What must be destroyed – or perhaps transformed is a better word here – is the idea that our language is THE only language to be spoken, that our way is THE only way.  The accountability of the Spirit gathered requires that we honor the resonance within the difference, the diversity within the unity, and to speak from this.  This resonance in difference nested in this gathering place of the Spirit is spacious enough to hold everything.

Raimon Panikkar, the Hindu Christian mystic, describes the Holy Spirit as that empty space between the Father and the Son in the Trinity, which allows space for us.[i]  The Holy Spirit is the very space in which we exist within the dynamism of Life.  This empty space is no void at all, but is the capacious space of abundance.

Here in the very life of God, we may be tempted to ask dumb-foundedly, ‘how could it be possible that we don’t all speak the same “language?”’  How could it be that we can share an understanding of something while at the same time having very specific and particular lifestyles, cultures and personalities?  And yet that is what the Holy Spirit grants – the abundant capacity for the divine.

There is a universal resonance that all of us are afforded.  This is what the Holy Spirit is proclaiming to and through us.  It’s not just words and actions, but a mysterious connection, a divine breath that we share with one another.  Life in the Spirit is not a problem to be solved, but rather a life to be lived.[ii]

“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,

if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”  (ROM 8:8-17)

In all that we can and cannot say about the mysterious nature and power of the Holy Spirit, it seems that the holiness of the message is quite simple – connection and relatedness.  But we all know that this simplicity can be quite difficult to set free and release into our lives.  We try to harness the spirit in an attempt to make it our own, instead of letting the Spirit flow in and through us.   The grace of the Holy Spirit is one of receptivity, acceptance, and trust.

The suffering that we must endure surfaces in our selfishness and privatization that prohibits that which is always meant to be shared – Compassion – towards everything and everyone! To be glorified with him, it to act as Christ in the Spirit, by letting go, surrendering everything that we cling to that blocks compassion.  Then, the the capacity for compassion becomes the limit of the Holy Spirit, which is no limit at all?  Rather it is an abounding horizon of loving energy that when released gathers us into community in such a way that each of us can discover and manifest our particular gifts in the holy gusts of communion.  Nothing gets lost, but only MORE and growing still.

The burgeoning of the early Church, whose birthday we celebrate on Pentecost is a wonderful image of the Spirit of Christ, that cannot do anything else, in truth, than bear witness to our identify as children of God, heirs of God, and yes, destined for divinity!  People speaking different languages can understand the Holy Spirit’s message, in the language of their own heart.

We all learn to speak by listening.  Could this be the limitless holiness of the mighty power of the Spirit of Christ?  The universal gift that we can give to each other – to listen, listen, listen…and in doing so to compassionately speak and proclaim the Easter Good News of our Lives.  To breathe in the Wind of the Divine and be astounded that we are all children of God!

[i] Raimon Panikkar, CHRISTOPHANY: The Fullness of Man (Orbis Books: 2004), 73.

[ii] Ibid.

Peace

Thomas

(Originally published May 15, 2016)