Pentecost

©David Challoner

It's hard to grasp Pentecost,
how that one moment
changed lives for ever.

Does it happen now
as it happened then
to Peter, Mary, John

and Matthias*, the new one,
chosen that day
to join the twelve?

A scared bunch they were
before that moment
then, wow!

A burning within
lighting up countenances
that shone so others saw,

a bursting forth in words,
a deep-down confidence,
with sudden courage to speak out.

'They're like a bloomin' lot of drunks,
you can't shut 'em up
or calm 'em down!'

Does it happen now?
This urge to tell the tale
and, laughing, dance and sing,

Peter in the market place,
James and John on the road,
Mary among her friends?

Here's a thing;
one moment shaped 
a future,

not by books or cleverness
or works of art or monuments,
not by heroic deeds retold,

but by shining lives
gripped and shaken,
fanned and set ablaze

by Divine touch
that draws from despair 
a soaring hope,

that will not be hushed
ignored or trampled
but leaps free.

It happened then,
it happens now,
a mysterious surge within

so friends ask,
'What's up with him?
He's different!

There's something
indestructible, indescribable,
new in the way 

he treats us.
He's himself, more so
than previously.

Have you seen
his words and actions
seem to sit more comfortably**

as though he's living from
the very depths of his soul
and speaking truth

that can't be gainsaid?
And her! She's like
one renewed

with hope that dwells 
on what's possible,
does not forget the past

but draws strength
from memories
that once wounded sore

as though she's 
been set free to choose
her frame of mind?'

These people are
the Lord's disciples
now as then, then as now

and always 
the Spirit lives on 
even to the end of time

unputdownable,
effervescent, bubbling
up and over

into life's strange mix,
making mischief
for whoever deals in evil.

For that which is of God
within each heart
outlasts all else

and slowly increases
like yeast in beer fermenting,
expanding, pushing out 

so whatever confines it
at length explodes
in riotous preparation

for a party, a feast,
the dance of those
marked indelibly by joy***.

©Janet Henderson 20th May 2017 

* Acts 1.26 Matthias is elected to join the apostles.
** Mahatma Ghandi, 'Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed.' (Women and Social Justice 1945 edition.)
***Teilhard de Chardin S.J. 'Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.'