Openness to the spirit sustains and grows us
Owning pipelines, people, products, or even intellectual property is no longer the key to success. Openness is.
—What Would Google Do
Though I have at times been accused of being too open, I continue to believe it is the right posture for listening to the leading of the Spirit.
A few weeks ago we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, keeping with the long standing practice of commemorating the coming of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost) fifty days after Easter Day.
As I anticipated Pentecost, the Sunday readings May 17 reminded me that when the Spirit comes it does so in abundance, “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word . . . The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles . . .” (Acts 10:44ff). Clearly the Spirit did not drift in as a docile presence or arrive as an inactive, limited power.
Ruminating on those recent readings, I am even more mindful that receiving and releasing the flowing Spirit is the very call to each of us – to let this life-giving power flow through us, neither contained or controlled. In doing so we continue to be renewed and transformed, and become agents for the same in the world around us.
Great and miraculous things happen, not through our own power or control, but by our openness to act as we are empowered by the Spirit. Author Martin Hughes offers an apt descriptive image of the posture that allows the power of God to be seen and known through us in this way,
“Some people’s strength is all drawn from themselves. They are like isolated pools with limited reserves. Others are more like rivers. They do not produce or contain the power, but it flows through them, like blood through the body. The strength is theirs, but it is not their own.” (The Beatitudes)
As the summer season comes closer, I invite you take time for reflection on the attitudes and assumptions that either block the flow of the Spirit or free it up to renew, empower, even raise to new life. It’s the difference between an isolated pool and a flowing river.
I also invite you to consider in your contemplative time the theme of this year’s Diocesan Convention, “Living Water for Thirsty People,” focusing on Jesus as the “living water.” How might we ourselves to make known the truth of His Spirit both in our care for creation, and for those who have more than enough to drink yet remain desperately thirsty. May this summer be a spiritually refreshing season for you.
