Acts 2:6 (CEB) When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages.
The Gift of Being Understood
Summary: The Holy Spirit is the gift of being understood.
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This Sunday is Pentecost. Pentecost is feast of the day the Holy Spirit was gifted. The Holy Spirit is about being understood and understanding. The Pentecost event focused on speaking with people who could not communicate with one another. On the day of Pentecost, we see that Jesus’s disciples were able to share their faith with others. Sharing faith is not just about preaching to people but creating a deep connection with others around deep mysteries. We share our faith because that is the deepest way to connect to others. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to be understood and to understand, thus creating deep connection. The Day of Pentecost is all about the Apostles being able to speak to people whom they could not usually connect. The Spirit gave them the ability to understand one another. It is really the gift of being known and understood. Pentecost is a day of miracles; the miracle of being known in our deepest place.
I was moved by this prayer by Jan Richardson in her book Circle of Grace. I hope it speaks to you about separation ceasing as it did me.

What the Fire Gives

You had thought that fire
only consumed,
only devoured,
only took for itself,
leaving merely ash
and memory
of something
you had believed,
if not permanent,
would be long enough,
enduring enough,
to be nearly
eternal.
So when you felt
the scorching on your lips,
the searing on your heart,
you could not
at first believe
that flame could be
so generous,
that when it came to you-
you, in your sackcloth
and sorrow-
it did not come
to consume,
to take still more
than everything.
What surprised you most
were not the syllables
that spilled from
your scalded,
astonished mouth-
though that was a miracle
enough,
to have words
burn through
what had been numb,
to find your tongue
aflame with a language
you did not know
you knew-
no, what came
as greatest gift
was to be so heard
in the place
of you deepest
silence,
to be so seen
within the blazing,
to be met
with such completeness
by what the fire gives.
May you be filled with divine connection,
Pastor Anny+
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