I have been waiting for Pentecost, the day when the Church celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit. As many of the other liturgical landmarks in this past season, the actual time and place of celebration has felt ambiguous and amorphous. will the Church gather? where and when? Will people congregate or continue to sit with their screens and watch from afar?

With those questions in my heart, I began to pay attention to the way the Spirit has made Her presence known in my quotidian life already, since it is my conviction that the Spirit is already here, everywhere, in everyone, and Pentecost is the simply day when we celebrate it together. As I cast my eyes over my daily meanderings, I remembered the mornings when I woke with real energy to make something happen, the afternoons when I rested in peacefulness, despite the chaotic winds in the world around me, and the healing of past hurts and slights that I recognized has come to my hearts and soul over time. This is Spirit in my life! I celebrated the acts of courage and wisdom that I have witnessed in the lives of people I know and those far away, who do justice, love, mercy and walk humbly with the Holy One. I reveled in the grace and beauty of those who step up to the moment to bring resolution to sticky situations. The Spirit at work! I made notes of words of wisdom, breadth of perspective, that were spot on. And I mused with joy at the Mystery of ways being made where there had seemed to be no way. Again, the Spirit on the move!

All spring our reminder of last year’s joyful hummingbird family remained on top of our wind chimes in the patio, an empty nest. And although we had been told that a hummingbird will return to her nest, ours remained vacant, even when two other nests attached themselves to our rafters around Easter time. But then! the night before the date of Pentecost, there she was! Last year’s Mother Hummingbird, feathering, then sitting on her nest., exactly where she had left it last year! I am overjoyed! She’s not a traditional dove. as picture in so much sacred art, but she represents to me the beauty and surprise of the Holy Spirit–coming when she is ready, adjusting her normal warp speed to the constancy of still presence to the eggs beneath her as they grow and become who they will be.

The pastor preached yesterday: Pentecost is an ongoing event; it is a constant filling… I know that to be true! And how grateful I am for the particular images of the Spirit’s presence–moving, sitting still, surprising, nourishing, energizing–and giving wisdom and beauty as she does so! Blessed Pentecost!