Spiritual Sunday – Pentecost
The original Pentecost came at a dark time, and things aren’t so great at the moment as we look at the ravages of climate change and gun violence and the rise of authoritarianism. In this simple but profound poem by the 10th century female Japanese poet Izumi Shikibu, however, there’s a glimmer of moonlight, even as the wind batters our ruined house.
Indeed, it is because our house has leaks that the light is able to get through. Often we are most open to the Holy Spirit when things are falling apart. Here’s the poem, which I found in a Poetry Foundation article where poet Jane Hirshfield has assembled “22 poems about spirituality and enlightenment.” Hirshfield translated the poem with the help of Mariko Aratani:
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
A wind reportedly blew through the hall on the original Pentecost as well, bringing about its own light (tongues of fire). Into this ruined world came divine hope, as Luke informs us:
When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
May our battered hearts open themselves to the moonlight that wants to leak in, filling all with its radiance.