I Will Not Leave You Orphaned

As we move from Easter to Pentecost, so many of the lectionary texts are pointing toward the Holy Spirit, and I have to say it's pretty timely. I also read Untamed, by Glennon Doyle lately, and she refers a lot to the knowing, which I think is something similar. She says, when uncertainty rises be still, and sink inward, feel around for the knowing, do the next right thing, don't ask permission, and don't explain.

I don't know about you, but I have needed this a lot lately. I feel like I am drowning in uncertainty just about every day. I don't know when it is the time to just take care of my little family with all I've got and when it is the time to fight against injustice. Sometimes I just don't even know which injustice to be heartbroken by today. I start to feel a little nauseated at the sheer volume of it. In John 14:18, soon before he is arrested and crucified, Jesus tells his disciples, "I will not leave you orphaned, I am coming to you." Out of all of the texts about the Holy Spirit lately, this is the one that keeps coming to my head. When I feel alone. When I feel like there is too much work. When I feel like the world is caving in on me and I just want to disappear. I can sink in the quiet, and find the voice that knows, the Spirit of Truth, the advocate. On that day, Jesus says, we can KNOW that he is in the father, and we are in him, and he is in us. I just started a new Macrina Wiederkehr book, the Song of the Seed. She quotes the Wordsworth poem, "trailing clouds of glory do we come from God" She says that when we were created God was singing a song over us, and as we grow we start to forget, but we can sink into the soil of ourselves again -- see that same imagery keeps coming up -- and find that song, that seed of who we are made to be, and grow in it. The first Lectio Divina passage today was from the Sermon on the Mount; Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about what you will eat or drink. Don't worry about what you will wear. Don't worry, trust. TRUST. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven. Everything else will be added. So I sank into the soil, into the knowing. I felt around for the Spirit of Truth, the Advocate. I asked, what does the reign of heaven look like here? now? How do I pursue heaven in our home? in this broken, hurting world? Does it look like Eden? When God ruled in Eden it looked like Abundance, like the piles of produce on my tables and in my fridge. It looked like Order, everything named and self-reproducing. It looked like Creativity, all of us playing with watercolors around the table and listening to a story. It looked like Partnership, 13 years with RJ celebrated yesterday. It looked like Conversation, every cool evening spent walking through the trees with Creator. I can't fix all the injustices of the world today. That doesn't excuse me from doing anything, but when I start to feel like it's too much, and I can't do anything at all, I ask myself, what I need in order to be able to do what I was made for. Usually what I need is to sink into the soil and listen for the song. I am not orphaned. There is a Holy Mother there waiting for me.