“And in the last days,” God says, “I will pour out my spirit upon every sort of flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy and your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams.” Acts 2:17
As an old man, my dream this Pentecost Sunday is for honest, humble, fearless, fearful, awe-full voices to speak clearly.
The Descent Of The Spirit by Gustave Dore
From Luke 10. The Bible.
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?”
He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’’”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.” —Scout Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. b: April 28, 1926, d: February 19, 2016.
God, forgive me when I become so full of vitriol, fear, hate, scorn and blindness that I can’t even see my neighbor anymore.
