Pentecost 2023

"Birdsong. Inspirited."

I wrote this on a page in my notebook this morning, as I drank my coffee outside at the patio table.

Today was another perfect May day--clear skies, warm but not hot. And oh, so quiet at 8am. Yet in the silence, birds, one chip-chip-chipping from the tree near my chair, others whistling more melodic tunes down the block. Like a fourth dimension of being. The sun was still low in the sky, lighting up the undersides of leaves and branches and shining warmly into my face. 

"Inspirited," I wrote on the page, and then, not sure if this was really a word, I looked it up in the dictionary app on my phone. 

        Inspirit: to infuse with spirit. Syn. spirit up.

Spirit up. It's the day for it--Pentecost. Or should that be Spirit down? As in descending onto the disciples' heads in tongues of fire?

I went to church, sang the hymns -- including two big 16th-century Lutheran chorales, "Creator Spirit, Heavenly Dove" and "Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord" that I'm always surprised to discover are two different hymns. Perhaps we should just sing the ancient "Veni, Creator Spiritus" and be done with it. 

Honestly, I didn't need tongues of fire, the rushing wind, Peter's sermon from Acts, or even Jesus in the upper room. But the great blue heron I saw fly overhead while stopped at a stoplight as I drove to church?

Spirit up!