Pentecostal Faces
I love taking my 10-year-old son, John, to swim class. It’s one of the highlights of my week. But it’s certainly not the water I’m attracted to. I don’t even know how to swim. No, I like to take him because the classes are held in an intergenerational care facility.
Every Wednesday afternoon, we pull into the parking lot and tuck the van into a slot. John grabs his swim gear and we head for the front entrance, which usually has a transport van or two idling in the half-circle drive. We scoot through the exhaust fumes and swerve our way around the attendants standing outside.
Just inside the electronic front door is a beautiful jumble of wheelchairs and walkers toting around some of the most joyful, innocent faces I’ve ever seen: the faces of mentally disabled folk.
I especially like to look into their unpretentious eyes. There I can see the face of God. These special souls are not like those of us with more sophisticated thinking patterns. We fall prey to the mass-mindedness of the secular world and the devastation of the culture of death. Their hearts and minds are simple and untainted. They can only give and accept love. They’re divine masterpieces.
If our hearts were as uncomplicated as theirs, we would never let our insecurities govern our actions and attitudes. We would never rationalize our disobedience to God’s will. We would never be deceitful or conniving or judgmental. We wouldn’t crave power or seek revenge. Instead, we’d live our lives in complete acceptance and simplicity, content to be living out God’s plan for our lives.
We may not be quite as pure as the people at the intergenerational facility. And yet we, too, can become divine masterpieces. How? By opening ourselves to the Holy Spirit this Pentecost (June 4) and ever after.
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:1-4).
If we’ll let him, the Holy Spirit will pour seven gifts into our souls — wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord. These can blossom into the fruits of charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control and chastity.
Through the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, we can put aside our sophisticated thinking patterns and reject the allures and ambitions that can abound not only in the culture around us, but in our own communities, our own workplaces, our own homes and our own hearts.
Each week, those luminescent faces at the care facility remind me of the apostles in the Upper Room at Pentecost. As the wind blew and the tongues of fire appeared, they must have been so filled with love and joy that only the present moment mattered. That’s just how the mentally disabled approach life: Nothing else matters to them but the wonder and awe of the present moment.
The wind may not blow and tongues of fire may not appear for us this Pentecost. But the Holy Spirit will come if we’re open to him. If we allow him to, he’ll transform us so that, when others look into our eyes, they’ll see the face of God.
