The wind picks up and papers flutter. That which holds no weight finds itself floating and shifting. Moving from simply a breeze, the winds increase and become a united force. A great gush from the skies funnels down and circulates itself. It begins its work of not just shifting and shaping but dismantling and destroying.

The funnel encircles the known structures and that-which-has-been becomes a pile on the ground. As the wind softens and fades, the brick wall has now returned to its former life as building blocks.

That-which-has-been now is that-which-will-be.

As seasons change and life forward, I am working on moving from begrudging change to opening my arms to embrace it. I am working on my own vulnerability and levels of trust – things that I yearn to experience or foster in others and yet requires strength to embrace weakness.

How many disciples stood in the temple unable to see the Spirit sweeping its whirlwind Pentecost force through the people as good news?

How many needed more time and more processing to understand that the Great Stirring leaves not ruins but building materials for what is yet to come?

How many had fully embraced the reality that to live this human life in dynamic dependence on the Creator is to live in a perpetual state of disruption and redemption?

And yet how many later told the story with a grin on their lips and a tear in their eyes, for they knew all that came from the Great Stirring?

Come, Holy Spirit, Come.
In the name of love-perfected-in-the-flesh,
stir the life of your servant.

I pause and I give thanks for the presence of God that causes the earth to tremble and the mountains to smoke.

I give thanks for the Great Stirring of the Spirit that invites me to trust that “the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”

I give thanks for a God that not only creates and redeems but still delights in doing so for the Great Stirring brings us closer to the world as God dreamed it to be.