When I read blogs for previous Pentecosts, it seems easier to see the wind of the Spirit blowing then, the inspiration flowering in unexpected places. This year seems darker: research from Boston University estimates that the lethal cuts to U.S. humanitarian aid will result in more than 750,000 deaths around the world in the first year. “Callous cruelty” best describes this administration’s closing of USAID, the action alone costing $6.4 billion, a sum that could have saved over 1 million children’s lives. In domestic disasters, after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Republican-dominated state legislatures are gerrymandering districts to deny Black people their right to vote. A clever cartoon by Nick Anderson shows an ordinary citizen struggling to push a massive boulder named “inflation” up a mountain, while the president asks, “Take a quick break to check out my ballroom plans?” It’s all so frustrating, heart-breaking, ugly, and corrupt—with apparently little to stop it.
But it must’ve been dark in the upper room for the first disciples, too. Scripture records only locked doors and fear, suggesting how grief, despair and helplessness must’ve haunted them. So where are the gusts of Spirit this year? Probably many more than I record–the reader can add favorites–but for starters:
The sun keeps rising, the waves keep rolling in, the spring keeps flowering—something eternal in nature abides.
Brave, intelligent journalists like Nicholas Kristof bring us the statistics above in the New York Times and Heather Cox Richardson sets the historical record straight in “Letters from an American,” heathercoxrichardson@substack.com.
Areas like Santa Clara County, CA stalwartly oppose a planned detention center. Counsel Tony LoPresti called it “the federal government building an infrastructure for terror” against immigrant communities.
The Obama Presidential Center opens June 19 in Chicago, a powerful reminder of a president who was brilliant, understood the Constitution, avoided corruption, and respected democratic ideals.
We draw strength from the historical witness of those who’ve endured terrible times before us. Fourteenth century mystic Julian of Norwich lived through plagues, wars, and assassinations, but kept her focus firmly on God’s radiance. Or as St. Bernard said, “lift our eyes from our miseria (misery) to God’s misericordia (mercy).” Our only delusion: to think we’re separate from God and have to muddle through without God’s help.
Kathy Coffey 