The Spirit of the Lord fills the whole world! we read in Wisdom 1:7. Pentecost is the fulfillment of that statement, the culmination of the old, the completion of all things that had been promised. And yet, it was also the beginning of something new, something different, something never before known.
This movement mirrors the rhythm of life: complete some stage; begin another. To benefit from stages, we must learn to let go, and that can sometimes be hard.
I find it right now, as I take time to pray and reflect at the monastery I once lived in as a member. As I look around, I see so much that is the same. But there are things that have changed as well. The tool room is full of cobwebs, most of the tools missing, and those that remain are pretty useless. The green house has no plants. The gardens are smaller, modest, in keeping with the diminished membership of the monastery. Worst of all, the monastery members themselves have gotten older, many of my friends have passed on, and those who remain hobble around, unable to do the activities they once so enjoyed. I find myself longing for the past, for things to have stayed just as there were, for things not to change.
And that would be wrong. Because that would be death.
And so, as I slip into the chapel to pray Vespers with the nuns, I think about how the spirit is about life, about movement. It is the spirit that creates from chaos and finds light in dark places. It is the spirit that reveals what new things are concealed in endings. And it is the spirit that moves us forward, especially when we want to remain looking back, at what once was, at what once was new.
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