Dear Friends in Christ,

A while back, I did a preaching seminar on Pentecost.  The seminar leader made the comment—sort of a joke, sort of not—that Pentecost always feels like a consolation prize.

No one, he said, names Pentecost as their favorite holiday.  No one hums Pentecost hymns.  Although it is theologically and liturgically on par with Christmas and Easter—we celebrate one member of the Trinity, for heaven’s sake—it doesn’t feel that way.

I have been thinking about this comment recently.  Pentecost is coming day after tomorrow.  What celebration do we experience?

May can be a difficult time of year.  Teachers and children alike are trying to keep it together until the end of the school year.  Parents talk about “Maycember” as they wedge school concerts and sports banquets into an already overfull calendar.  More existentially, there can be a sense of summing up, sometimes of measuring up: In this year, have we done what we needed?  Have we been who we wanted?  And we may be too tired out to answer.

We are dispirited.  For a lot of people, around this time of year, the wind has been knocked out of them.

Which makes me think: if Pentecost is a consolation prize, that’s a good thing, because you and I need to be consoled.

In the middle of this worn down, home stretch month comes a feast day that promises exactly what we long for.  It offers breath and wind.  It offers, literally, inspiration—the Spirit moving into us and offering to bring us back to life and liveliness.

Pentecost honors the Holy Spirit and proclaims the birth of the church, reminding me that church is meant to be not a burden but a gift.  The church is given by the Spirt as a source of rest, of creativity, of surprise and delight, of joy.

Wherever you are this weekend—whether traveling in search of rest or pausing here at home—I hope you will allow yourself to be refreshed by the abundance of the Spirit.  Be celebratory—and also be consoled.  The Spirit meets you where you are, and the Spirit blesses you there.

Yours in Christ,

Anne+