Maranatha ~ Come Holy Spirit!

" Do Not Put Out The Spirits Fire. "

1 Thessalonians 5:19

It's raining today in Portland and I have the Fire of the Holy Spirit on my mind. Why the Fire of the Holy Spirit? It may be the damp 62 degrees that has settled into my bones, or it may be the upcoming ordination of my Beloved sister Patriciafaye or it may be the doubt of my own calling that has slipped ever so quietly in the backdoor this past week. Whatever it is...the Holy Spirit has my attention and intention tonight.

I have had a lifelong relationship with doubt...doubting myself, my abilities and gifts, my worth, my vision, my relationship with God, my own call to ministry -- you name it and I have doubted it. My seminary teacher Rev. Suzan Hill once said to me that doubt was a gift, that it would keep me humble, pliable and dependent on God's strength and will and not my own. I believe she was mostly right and yet I often forget this when Divine dose of doubt comes to call. I forget the promise of the scripture "for it when I am weak, then I AM strong." And in this forgetting I can become paralyzed, immobile, finding myself in an unwanted courtship, a suffocating entanglement with fear. {“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ... For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10}

It is at the exact moment when I move forward to embody, express and enact more God in my life that doubt increases in equal measure. It is in that moment, if I am awake and remember, that I drop to my knees in surrender and whisper "Maranatha." Come Lord, Come Yeshua, Come Fire of the Holy Spirit, Come Divine Presence (what one of my friends calls "a Savior moment." It is in that moment that I remember the slogan, "God doesn't call the qualified,
God qualifies the called." It is in that moment, when I have the courage to take a step forward, a leap into the Mystery, that the Holy Spirit is beckoned and descends in a Pentecostal downpour activating latent gifts, unseen resources and untapped courage. It requires an act of faith, an Indiana Jones sort of leap into the Great Abyss, to activate the sustenance and the fortification of the Holy Spirit. Then and only then can the Power of the Presence and the full resources of the Divine come to infuse and inform this holy mission. As my resolve to accept this mission, this movement forward increases, even in the midst of fear and trembling, the Spirit breathes upon me and whatever is needed always shows up. The Holy Spirit fosters and frees up my creativity only if I first decide to do something inspired.

I loved these quotes I found on a web site today that are sure to lighten up the seriousness surrounding this Doubting Thomas versus Mustard Seed faith tussle.

Don't let your worries get the best of you; remember, Moses started out as a basket case.

Don't give God instructions -- just report for duty!

I am re-enlisting today (9/16/07 @ 7:25 p.m.) in the radical revolution, the metanoia of the heart. I am re-engaging this process of awakening my own sacred and succulent heartmind and bodysoul. I am re-calling the Spirit of Christ into the core of my being, asking for a full enactment of the Christing within me and within my life. I am re-membering my call to naked ministry, to revealing revelations, to bringing forth the mystery and magnitude of the Sacraments in word and in presence, to using my gifts in service to this silent awakening. I am re-questing the presence of the Holy Spirit to free up, to magnify and to multiply the usefulness of any gift I have in order that I may be used to be the image and the instrument of the Love that flows from Christ.

I am inviting you along with me this week, into this illumination and fiery infusion. I am inviting you to stir up and fan into flame the gifts of God that are within you, within your own sacred, ecstatic and succulent heart! Maranatha, maranatha, maranatha! This simple mantra will invoke the coming of the fire, the dove, the breath, the oil.

I will close tonight with a few words from the lyrics of Van Buren Benny,
“You’ve got to have heart, miles and miles of heart.”

May we all go the distance,
May we all remember that
We have miles and miles of heart!

Hugs,
Anakha


Metanoia means: “a change of mind”... turning around, to face a new direction...
to turn toward the light. Because when you face the light, shadow is behind you.