Terrapin Station

Come, Holy Spirit!

Although it is Pentecost Sunday, this post is not about Pentecost worship, because I'm not attending. I hate to miss it, but after an evening and 2 full days of Enneagram Boot Camp, I need non-people time, prepping-for-the-week-time, brain-sorting time, home-with-Ken-time.

I will return to The Micah Center this afternoon for several more hours of Boot Camp and a full day on Monday, too.

Last summer I attended a Benedictine Silent Retreat in Dallas for 4 days. This is my "retreat" for this year. It's been wonderful and different and a glorious opportunity to dive deep into an amazing spiritual tool that has meant so much to me.

I first learned about the Enneagram from Suzanne Stabile after I heard hear speak on "Jonah and the 4 Mantras" at a DOK event in Dallas several years ago. At that event, I bought her "Know your Number" CD's and listened to them, and I was convicted. I've been listening to CD's and MP3's that I've ordered online from the Life in the Trinity Ministry online store since then, and of course Suzanne was the speaker for the RevGals cruise in January. This is my 4th workshop with her this  year.

In Boot Camp, along with a tremendous amount of learning and hard work, we are doing an exercise, taking a poem titled "Where I'm From" and rewriting it using our own life references. Then we take turns reading them aloud. These are the purest Holy Spirit moments for me, so far...because, although I didn't realize it when I wrote mine, these are an opportunity to go to amazingly raw and private places.

When I got up to read mine, and afterward, I shook. I never have a problem standing in front of people...but telling those truths, obscure as some of them probably were to everyone but me...was a breath of air, an opportunity to feel free and safe with a group committed to learning their truths and working to improve themselves through it. There's some Spirit for ya.

Of course, the great temptation in these workshops is to try to write everything down...but learning from Suzanne is, as she says, like drinking from a fire hose. She's a fast talker. Also, I have finally stopped trying to take notes on every number, and am just concentrating on my own. The whole point is to work on myself...and working on other people, based on their numbers, is like trying to teach a pig to sing. 

It has rained this morning. We sat outside in the hot tub with the rain falling on our faces and watched the squirrels play overhead. I planted some impatiens. I am making quinoa and brown rice.

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Dallas Benedictine Experience

Pentecost Shoes

We are encouraged to wear red for Pentecost, but I am in a choir robe, no hats allowed there.  So I thought I'd go with red shoes. 

If I was going to buy red shoes, I wanted to buy something I'd wear again. 

So I wore these with my black suit.  Classy, no? 

Come, thou Holy Spirit

Choral offertory this morning, with a wonderful text: 

Come, thou Holy Spirit, come,

And from thy celestial home

Shed thy light and brilliancy.

 

Father of the poor, draw near

Giver of all gifts, be here;

Come, the soul’s true radiancy.

 

Come, of comforters the best

Of the soul the sweetest guest

Come in toil refreshingly

 

Thou in labor rest most sweet;

Thou art shadow from the heat

Comfort in adversity.

 

O thou Light, most pure and blest

Shine within the inmost breast

Of thy faithful company

 

Where thou art not, man has nought

Ev’ry holy deed and thought

Comes from thy Divinity.

 

Sinful hearts do thou make whole

Bring to life the arid soul

Guide the feet that go astray.

 

Make the stubborn heart unbend

To the faint, new hope extend

Wounded souls, their hurt allay.

 

Fill the faithful, who confide

In thy power to guard and guide

With thy sev’n-fold Mystery.

 

Here thy grace and virtue send:

Grant salvation in the end,

And in heav’n felicity.

 

Amen.

 

Text: Stephen Langton (d. 1228)

Tune: The Dublin Troper

Pentecost: The Holy Spirit Our Mother

Reading 'round the RevGals Ring this morning, sermons and pastoral prayers and reflections, has been so interesting.  I read a wonderful sermon by Elastigirl (which I will hear preached this morning) that informed my writing below; and also a pastoral prayer by Songbird (from whence I snitched the graphic). 

As I have been thinking about the Trinity over the last several years (remember that I hang out with a lot of preachers and listen to them talk about this stuff), it's become clear in my own mind that the Holy Spirit is feminine. 

I'm so convinced of this that now, when we say the Nicene Creed, I refer to HS with feminine pronouns (quietly, not to trouble others...it's for me.)   I've realized recently that while the 1979 Book of Common Prayer has male pronouns in the Creed for HS: 

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
    who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
    With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
    He has spoken through the Prophets.

However, the 1928 BCP (on which I cut my liturgical teeth) uses NO pronouns for HS:

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the Prophets...

Today is also Mother's Day, an observance oddly troubling in the way it has been included, somehow by cultural imperative, into many church services on or near the day...similar to the Fourth of July.  Why these, and not Father's Day?  Veteran's Day?  As you probably know, Mother's Day was not even started as what it has become. 

Mother's Day...I have a wonderful mother, and I'm not just saying this because she reads this blog.  I am truly fortunate to have been unconditionally loved and accepted by her all my life.  Not everyone has this experience, though.  Stepmothering has had its challenges, and loving unconditionally is a big one.  So many of my friends have struggled with infertility.  If you have children, and if you don't, life is full of pain.

On this day, let's put our focus on all the people who mother us and who have done so in the past...who include men, in many cases.  People on my list would include Father Jeff, Keith Dixon, Anna Wilburn, Eva H.,  Mona the aforementioned Songbird & Elastigirl...I could go on. 

And our model for mothering needs to be the Holy Spirit, our Comforter.   So perhaps, from now on, Mother's Day needs to be Holy Spirit Day...and Pentecost could be Mother's Day.

Later...I'll post a picture of my red Pentecost shoes!!