Pentecost Dreams

This morning, in that netherworld between sleeping and full awakening, I had one of those near-dreams wash refreshing over my spirit. I don't have them often, so they are always a pleasure to receive. In this one, I sat on the couch where I commonly sit and gazed at a grouping of candles, along with a vase, on the coffee table in front of me. The thing that refreshed my heart at the appearance of this scene before me was that all these elements were caught up in a gleam that sprang from some light source shining over my shoulder. This gleaming vase, alongside the softness of the candlelight, made me catch my spiritual breath at its loveliness. But one little candle caught my attention. It, too, had its way of gleaming, but its sparkle was due to its encasement in a cellophane wrapper. It was a short pillar nestled in front of other, taller pillars that burned serenely behind it, but it was of the same nature as them. It simply needed one more action taken to prepare it to join the light. I reached out and took it out of its wrapper so that it, too, could be used. And somehow I knew that little candle was me.

When I rose from my bed with this dream still on my mind, I took fresh coffee and my prayer journal out on the front porch to enjoy a golden dawn as I meditated upon Your interactions with me. Yesterday, I swept that porch--clearing it of the late winter/early spring cobwebs and aborted seed pods and dead leaves. I brought out the tall ferns that were not faring so well inside the house--the cats want to play in them. And I brought out the wicker chair that migrates seasonally from our foyer to the front porch. Yesterday, I made an inviting place just outside my front door, and today I took my first morning of meditation there. A "welcome" flag covered with primitive-art sunflowers flapped lightly in the breeze, and a dawning sun, as yet hidden by the garage, nevertheless showed itself in the sheen it cast across the tops of the dewy, cobwebbed bushes. I was reminded that all my sweeping would not ultimately alter the fact that spiders will come and go, but I was alright with that.

And the soft wind whispered a new expectation into my prayer time. Pentecost.

I've been called by the Spirit to expect a Baptism, a personal encounter with the Cross and Resurrection of my Lord Jesus Christ, a Circumcision from my own human belief in my personal potency. And each of these expectations was made manifest in my life, most of them with great strain in the birthing of them. This time I believe it may be different--the associated strain may come later. This time as I hear something about this next wayside stop on life's journey I hear whispers of a Pentecost, and there are noteworthy differences in such a call from these previous advents, if you will. It strikes me as interesting, to look back over the last few years as each of these landmark moments became a part of my being. At first, these foreshadowing nudges, enigmatic as the course of the wind and easily misunderstood if not received in faith--they prompted confusion and strangeness that was very nearly unwelcome as I had not walked with them in my bosom until they found their opportunities for fruition. But as I receive them with some small measure of experience now, that strangeness has evaporated into a more confident expectancy. They foster excitement as I can now anticipate Your doing a great work upon me because of what You have previously done.

If this is indeed a Pentecost in the truest sense of the word, I am excited; for this is the first such pronouncement over me that reaches beyond the blessing of personal benefit, reaches into a new domain--one where You bless others through me.

Yes, itt is fitting that I stepped outside my front door to hear such a message this morning. And my response prayer: May it be on earth as it is in heaven, may it be evident in the flesh as it is in the prayers of the Spirit and the Son...