Holy Spirit, Sustainer, God Moving Among Us!

The Spirit speaks your language. When the sacred seeks to reach out to you, when it seeks to communicate, it does so in a dozen different ways, all contained in words and images that you understand. It knows the art you appreciate, the music you prefer, the places in nature where you like to be. The Spirit does not hide, but emerges in ways you are most likely to comprehend.

Stephen Charleston

On this day of Pentecost when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit symbolized by fire and fluid understanding of each other regardless of language, I am inclined to say the the Holy Spirit is my favorite part of the Trinity...God moving among us and as Indigenous elder and retired Bishop Stephen Charleston says above, "the Spirit speaks your language!" Not just your native tongue, but your love language, your art language, music language, creation language and anywhere your sensitivity connects with your heart and you are lifted to a place of peaceful comprehension. "The Spirit does not hide," Bishop Charleston says. She is always emerging in ways just for us to understand.

Where have you felt, seen, heard, touched, tasted, wondered about the sacred recently? What has evoked in you a movement of the Holy, a sense of being sustained by Love, or even an overwhelming peace that seemingly came from nowhere? Look for it today as you can. She is there, that beautiful Holy Spirit, braiding her way within and around us individually and communally.

(But I must confess, without God the Creator and God the Redeemer, God the Sustainer is not complete, and so I must retract my comment that the Holy Spirit is my favorite...just today she's extra special!)

“Lakota Trinity,” one of the many beautiful paintings by the late artist Father John Giuliani, a Catholic priest who was dedicated to creating Catholic iconography that celebrates the lives and cultures of Native Americans.