Pentecost 15

May 24 Acts 2, Ps. 104

When Pentecost occurred some tribal peoples bleieved in pantheism, many  things were gods.On this Pentecost Sunday let’s get acquainted with a fancy word, panentheism.It imagines all in God, and God is in all, a God beyond us and yet within the world too? God is connected to the creation, but is not only creation, not limited by creation. It is a version of speaking of God as omnipresent. It fits the activity of the spirit well in creation. God’s energy is involved in the created order and the relationships within it. It is the opposite of Calvin’s thought that God makes separate discrete decision outside of the system for what happens in life.It has the sense tha tthe divine flows through creation.panenetheism” is a matter of cleansing the doors of perception, as William Blake affirms. It involves awakening to the holiness and wonder of every moment in living and dying.   It involves breathing in the wonder of life, opening your senses to the holiness of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound.  It involves pausing and noticing the infinity resident in every moment of experience, whether thoughts, emotions, dreams, encounter, or relationships. (Epperly)

The Spirit is connected to the yet to be experienced future.Ps 104-let sins cease-Leviathan as God’s plaything. Creation is god’s not ours alone v. 30 and the spirit being sent“Lived

god’s spirit is in every breath.god’s spirit is in every breeze.Fire as a symbol of god from early times.

god not limited to the past. God not limited to ethnic groups.Wide angle view and a deep focus at the same time-Sting had a song, every breath you take. V. 30 of Ps 104 has a hint that every breath, every respiration, re-spiriting is a new creative gift from god the Creator Spirit dwells at the heart of the natural world, graciously energizing its evolution from within, compassionately holding all creatures in their finitude and death, and drawing the world forward toward an unimaginable future. ..the Spirit embraces the material root of life and its endless new potential, empowering the cosmic process from within. ..energized from the spiraling galaxies to the double helix of the DNA molecule by the dance of divine vivifying power (191 Elizabeth Johnson, Quest). thought to be the day when Moses received the tablets. I love the idea that the flame that preceded the commandments now appears not in a volcano but in individual little flames, tongues like fire, -move from not understanding in Isaiah to a thunder that leads to understanding here

Mississippi and the confluence (Father of Waters-Piasa bird and Leviathan) In 1721, French explorer, Father Pierre Francois de Charlevoix, wrote of the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, "I believe this is the finest confluence in the world. The two rivers are much the same breadth, each about half a league: but the Missouri is by for the most rapid, and seems to enter the Mississippi like a conqueror, through which it carries its white waters to the opposite shore without mixing them, afterwards, it gives its color to the Mississippi which it never loses again but carries quite down to the sea ..."At the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers the volume of water in the Mississippi nearly doubles, accounting for approximately 45% of the flow at St. Louis in normal times and as much as 70% of the flow during some droughts. God’s spirit acts as a confluence. Please consider using some different naturla images in prayer life to capture other elements of the SPirit.

God’s spirit lifts up into the presence of Christ. We discover the hidden Christ by participating in the sacrament of Communion.The Spirit is the connection that creates the union between us and Christ and with each other. We are recipients then of a great gift.