‘Between Six and Sixty’

5/21/2019

I Was Thinking…

What is the Holy Spirit? Who is the Holy Spirit? Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation entitled Indwelling Spirit (May 19, 2019) spoke life into me. I sense a nudge of the Spirit to share it with you.

Without God as Holy Spirit, there’s no inner momentum, élan vital, or aliveness to heal our wounds. When the Spirit is alive in people, they wake up from their mechanical thinking and enter the realm of co-creative power. As in Ezekiel’s vision, the water flows from ankles to knees to waist to neck as the New Earth is hydrated. (See Ezekiel 47:1-12.) Like Pinocchio, we move from wooden to real. We transform from hurt people hurting other people to wounded healers healing others. Not just as individuals but as shapers of history that keeps moving forward through the Spirit’s power.

The Indwelling Spirit is this ability of humanity to keep going, to keep recovering from its wounds, to keep hoping. One thing we love so much about young children is their indomitable hope, curiosity, and desire to grow. They fall down, and soon they’re all grins again. Another generation is going to try again to live life to the fullest. But all too often, by the time they’re sixty they don’t smile so much, and we ask, “What happened between six and sixty?” I see it as loss of Spirit, because if you trust that the Holy Spirit is alive within you, you will keep on, despite every setback.

That question reached off the page and grabbed my soul, “What happened between six and sixty?” Children come into the world with their own DNA, but one common value is life and the desire to live it. What can happen along the way is at the very least sad…at the most, evil. There are certain things up for grabs. Hatred or love…peace or war…fear or faith…joy or sadness…hope or discouragement…positive attitude or negative attitude…kindness or meanness…self-control or out of control…security or insecurity. Between six and sixty there is a lot that can happen. There are contextual factors that shape us and remake us.

This is why family, community of faith, accountability/support group, mentors, coaches, teachers, friendships, relationships of all types become crucial to our lives. The Holy Spirit desires to shape us in all the best of ways…ways we cannot see or know. The Holy Spirit sees what is best, knows what is best, empowers us for the best. The only remaining piece of the equation is our openness to the Holy Spirit in our lives.

There is a ‘course correction’ for those bad behaviors learned and those unhealthy experiences experienced that have warped our lives between six and sixty. The indwelling Spirit of God invited into our lives is a force to straighten our gait and put a skip in our step.

Come Holy Spirit, come! Anybody sensing a ‘loss of Spirit’ in their lives, their church, their community, their world? Pray this prayer with me… “Come Holy Spirit, come! You are welcome here!”

What if…?

Always Thinking,