In-room coffee. Ahhhh!
For the caffeine addicts among us, this little perk can take the edge off an early morn spent in a place other than your own home. It’s not exactly the same as the “coffee prep ritual” you’d follow in more familiar climes, but it’s quick. And it’s close. And it gets the job done.
My Sweetie and I are in this place as a bit of a splurge. We’re only 10 or 12 minutes from home, but she’s marking a certain milestone birthday (ahem!) this weekend – so something special had to be done. And as it happens, our “special” coincides with other red-letter dates: a convergence of sorts – milestone birthday, Memorial Day weekend, Pentecost.
That last one kinda sneaks in there, doesn’t it? Christians mark the feast every year, closing out the Easter season, celebrating … what, exactly? The gift of the Spirit. A gift that comes into our lives dramatically, “like a strong driving wind.”
Unless it doesn’t. Unless the gift is given much more simply, like a cup of in-room coffee – making you feel at home even in a place that’s some distance from your actual home.
Simple, like the air you breathe.
Pentecost is a bit like that, too, isn’t it? Jesus “breathed on them, and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit.” There’s an everydayness to this gift that we might at times tend to miss. It kinda sneaks up on you, if you’re open to the invitation. It looks a little like “forgiveness,” perhaps. Your willingness to pardon somebody who sins against you – to set them free from the offense.
To see, instead, the face of God in them. The face of someone, indeed, on whom the Spirit of God has breathed.
Come, Holy Spirit!
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 