Today was Pentecost and the day which, in the Episcopal and Anglican church at least, one is encouraged to wear red.  It represents the descent of the Holy Spirit and the tongues of fire which God bestowed upon man in every spoken language of the world.  The English author and U.S. resident Os Guinness said:

“The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism.  God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes.”

What an empowering statement:  to turn ourselves toward hope and prayer and not give in to gloom and defeatism.  My father was an avid believer in this concept, and he instilled it deeply in me.  He was reared by his Choctaw grandmother whom, I was told, had an incredibly deep faith.  Her faith was so powerful I believe it has carried its way to me and, I fervently pray, it will continue on into my daughter as well.  Faith is something one cannot see; it simply must be accepted.  Some may call this foolish.  I believe it is a priceless legacy far more precious than gold.  It is the concept of eternal salvation and a belief in something bigger than ourselves.  The Church speaks of “Holy Mysteries.”  Was Jonah really swallowed by a whale?  No way, people say.  It’s just a cute story told to children in Sunday school.  And yet a man by the name of James Bartley is said to have been swallowed whole by a sperm whale.  He was found days later in the stomach of the whale, which was dead from constipation.  This took place in the late nineteenth-century … not in “Biblical times.”  The story of Noah’s Ark and the Great Flood is one of the most famous in the Bible, and yet people have dismissed it as something of a fairy tale or an allegory.  Several years ago an acclaimed underwater archeologist found scientific proof that the Biblical flood was indeed based upon actual events.  I believe.  I believe in the tongues of fire set forth by the Holy Spirit on this day.  Is it hard for me?  My rational mind can certainly reject it.  In the end that is the embodiment of faith.  It is in seeing the unseen.