Station 14

Reflection:

This resurrection station is the hardest for me… vulnerably… because I could never speak in tongues. I grew up Lutheran and we never really talked about the Holy Spirit. He was like a bad uncle that didn’t come to holidays anymore. But throughout my life I have found myself in other expressions of faith, and from time to time I’ve landed into a charismatic gathering.

I don’t know if you’ve been to a charismatic gathering but they are very exciting. Flags and bands and jazz hands… and definitely a time for those who can to speak in tongues. If you don’t know what speaking in tongues is, it’s the phenomenon of being a conduit for a heavenly language, the words of the Spirit that will pray the things we don’t quite know we need to pray. In the book of Acts, some of the early church believed that tongues was an essential sign of something new taking place in the Jewish religion. Some followers today believe that it is essential that everyone who professes belief in the Risen One must pray in tongues.

I’ve tried my hardest. I’ve earnestly prayed in secret and asked for the gift of tongues. I let strangers “shamala hamala” over me at prayer services while they invoke the Holy Ghost to give me the heavenly language. I’ve asked and I’ve asked and I’ve asked… and yet… no tongues.

This is the hardest part of religion for me… when it doesn’t work. Am I doing it wrong? Is there something wrong with me? Am I not worthy enough for this? Unfortunately these are not only our own voices that we need to deal with. They can be corroborated by a community that is asking why we can’t do it like they all are doing it. What’s wrong with us? We must be hiding something that makes us unworthy for participation.

That to me is the thing behind the thing behind the thing in all religious activities… the question of “am I worthy enough for participation?” Participation in meaningful work. Participation in Divine conversations. Participation in Holy Spirit strategies to transform this world. Am I on the Way, a part of the Way, or am I just in the way?

There was a time where the Followers of the Risen One didn’t know what do. The Risen One had disappeared into a place unseen and in response they committed themselves to waiting for what was next. In one of those waiting gatherings, a noise like a “violent rushing wind” descended on the room, tongues “that looked like fire” rested on each one of the gathered, and then the Spirit gave them the ability to speak in different languages. This was important because in the next scene they are sent out and able to speak to the international audience who had gathered in Jerusalem that weekend, being able to proclaim what was happening in the native tongue of those listening. It was the birthing of something new, and it needed its faithful translators.

The Followers were given what they needed to accomplish what they were being asked to do.

The Spirit gave them what they needed to share the good news of the Risen One: that resurrection was moving from one nation to all nations. What they needed was a bit miraculous, the ability to speak other languages, and they were given what they needed to do that. The Spirit gave the followers what they needed for Divine participation.

Maybe this is a story about heavenly tongues. Maybe this is a template of what humans are supposed to be doing over and over, every generation for another two thousand years. I don’t know. I have Google Translate on my phone now. Is Google Translate destroying the ongoing work of the Spirit?

This series of images and meditations are about contemplating what perspective change happened in the Followers of the Risen One back then and how we can participate in that resurrection way of seeing today. To me, and I have this written on my wall in my art studio, the resurrection perspective that is still happening today is this:

You will be given everything you need to accomplish what you have been asked to do.

This infers that one has taken the time, like the the Followers did, to wait, pray, listen and discern what one is being asked to do. Communally and individually.

The beginning of participation is the commitment to listening.

Next…(And I’m not trying to be formulaic here because how much of the Unfathomable Mystery of the Almighty has been reduced to “five easy steps” in our religious pragmatism)… whatever movement happens will be predicated by something given by the Spirit. I don’t know about tongues of fire, but I know from experience that in my life from time to time I needed a spark to fan the flame of courage, hope, kindness, and forgiveness to see new life sprout in the places of death. This spark wasn’t generated because I had the willpower to do so. It was always initiated by something given to me, most easily defined as an act of Love. A word, a thought, a perspective, an invitation. It was nothing I was in charge of.

Maybe it’s something that people who can’t speak in tongues say to console themselves and others, but let me bless you with this:

Your faith is not all up to you.

One of the earliest Followers of the Risen One wrote a letter of encouragement to another group of other Followers claiming “Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,” which is scandalous to the modern capitalist mind because it lets us off the hook for being responsible for perfection. It’s a work that is initiated and accomplished by the Risen One… so cease to believe that you will be left out because you feel unworthy for participation.

For me one of the greatest gifts of a new way of seeing is the knowledge that I don’t have do this on my own. Looking down the road of my life as solely my responsibility and my achievement leaves me overwhelmed and depressed. I think it’s because my calculating mind really sucks at surprise. It figures it all out, obsesses over ever detail, makes up a grandiose storyline, and yet I intuitively know that whatever goal I think I should be aiming for will inevitably be lacking in my desire to be fulfilled. What I really want is to participate. Participate in the Surprise that was happening back then and still happening today.

Maybe a great nickname for the Holy Spirit is the Great Surprise. It’s a Great Surprise that the Divine taps meek nobodies to participate in heavenly activities. It’s a Great Surprise that the greatest gifts of your life were nothing you were really in charge of. It’s a Great Surprise that you will be given everything you need to accomplish what you have been asked to do.

May you SEE that the journey of your life awaits a Great Surprise.