Make Mine Smothered!

I had a burrito at a famous Mexican restaurant last week.  It had all the ingredients I love, grilled chicken, southwestern corn and black beans, and guacamole inside.  And I was hungry! With great anticipation – this place was featured on “Triple D”/ Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives – I raised that first forkful of burrito to my mouth, and was greatly disappointed.  I tasted no guac, no spices, no anything.  My famous burrito was absolutely tasteless!  I asked my server for some hot salsa, mixed it with the avocado ranch dressing already on the table, and added the mixture to my burrito so I could bear to eat it, half of it anyway.  It was huge!  A huge tasteless blob.

I later overheard other diners ordering what they called “smothered burritos”, and I realized my error in ordering.  I like the burritos at La Tenampa in Toms River, NJ that come soaking in a hot, spicy red sauce, and just assumed that my burrito at this famous place would be as wonderful.  And maybe it would have been if it was soaking in the right stuff.  After all, the same ingredients are in La Tenampa’s burritos.  But my memories of those burritos are not so much all the good stuff inside, but the warm afterglow of the spicy sauce that lingers after the meal is over.

So, who do I want to be?  A knowledgeable, filled up, experienced person, looked up to for having all the right ingredients for success, or a somewhat messy, unabashed lover of God, soaking in the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The first one is a forgettable part of the meal of life.  The second leaves a warm and lasting glow of having been with the Father, not unlike how the two disciples felt after meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus.  The Bible says their hearts burned within them all the while they were talking with Jesus.  They didn’t remember the burrito – they basked in the soaking sauce of the Holy Spirit that lingered after Jesus had left them and couldn’t wait to tell their comrades about it, and to experience that presence again.

Yes, dry can be neater.  No sauce on the shirt or running down the chin.  Smothered is never predictable – you may end up laughing hysterically, or crying, or laying down on the floor.  But the warm afterglow is worth the unpredictability.

Yeah, make mine smothered! 

Use me like the dandelion seeds,

Arms spread wide to catch

The slightest breeze,

Moving without hesitation wherever the wind blows.

Here I am bearing your seeds of promise,

Heart opened wide to catch

Your slightest whisper,

Moving without hesitation wherever your Spirit leads.

Dandelion Seeds

Use me like the dandelion seeds,

Arms spread wide to catch

The slightest breeze,

Moving without hesitation wherever the wind blows.

Here I am bearing your seeds of promise,

Heart opened wide to catch

Your slightest whisper,

Moving without hesitation wherever your Spirit leads.

You Carry the Fragrance

As I walked this morning, I smelled a fresh fragrance.  It reminded me of fabric softener, or dryer sheets, so I figured it was coming from a dryer vent in some house along my route whose occupant was doing early morning laundry.  But when I continued to catch whiffs of the same fragrance several blocks away, I realized that the smell was probably coming from my hat.  I keep my “walking hat” in a cabinet in the laundry room where it most likely absorbed the fragrance of the fabric softener stored there.

Holy Spirit spoke to me just then, “You carry the fragrance”.

I go lots of places, some warm and fragrant like the House of Prayer, some sad and dark like the concentration camp we visited on the Italy Prayer Journey in early June, 2015.  But I cannot rely on the fragrance of the atmosphere I am entering – I have to bring the fragrance of the Holy Spirit with me.

When you walk into a room,

You bring the light;

You carry my presence;

You bring the fragrance of me.

Know in your heart

You have changed forever

Each place you have entered

With my lingering fragrance. 

HUG is for the Hug U God: my extremely non-theological thoughts on the Holy Spirit!

We have been learning in Bethel Sozo Training that people usually relate to Father God like they do their earthly fathers, to Jesus as they do their siblings and/or peers, and they view the Holy Spirit the way they do their mothers.

Growing up in my family with four siblings and an absentee dad, my warmest memories are of my soft, gentle mom.  I grew up under the wings of her unconditional love.  Even so, I find myself talking rarely to the Holy Spirit when I pray.  Most often, it’s Daddy.  So I've been asking God to teach me about the Holy Spirit since I am obviously lacking.

Karen Johnson asked us last week in Destiny Healing Rooms training class, “what is the Holy Spirit?”  When I think of “spirit” I think of a presence.  So God’s presence is the Holy Spirit.  Can you talk to a presence?  But Karen taught us that the Holy Spirit is a person.  Ah, that puts it more clearly now – I can talk to and with a person.

So, if the Holy Spirit is that motherly, warm and nurturing part of who God is, then I think he (or she?) is the Hug of God.  

Holy Spirit is the one you smell when you enter the House of Prayer and look around for candles burning where there are none, because the fragrance is so thick and warm. 

Holy Spirit is the joy that bubbles up on the inside and makes you laugh like Sue Colucci, or cry and smile at the same time.

Holy Spirit give you that “I’m home” feeling as you come through the side doors into the church after a rough day at work. 

Like my mom, Holy Spirit knows the secret longings of my heart, and he sends treasures my way just when I need them in the forms of gifts, hugs, words and people – just what and when I needed.  Holy Spirit tells me I am known, and loved.  He wraps himself around me like a handmade quilt (He is, after all, the Comforter!), and I breathe him in and relax in the safe refuge of his caress.

Then, after receiving healing and comfort from my wounds and disappointments, I get to pass on that Hug of God to you!

He’s the Hug U God.  He’s the Holy Spirit.

My Prayer Today....

Daddy, I want to be your resting place, my heart a place where you are comfortable to hang out.  I want to love the people, things and places you love.  I want my heart to look so much like yours that you enjoy being there, feel like it’s home, where you can sit back and sigh and say “I’m home”, just like I feel so often in the House of Prayer.

Daddy, teach me when I make you uncomfortable by the things I keep in my heart, like fear, bitterness, unforgiveness.  Open my ears to listen like one being taught ( Isaiah 50:4).

Daddy, Jesus, Holy Spirit, today I ask you to set my nerve endings on fire – that I would sense you through all five senses today in an acute, amazing, super-sensitive way.  I can make it to the end only if I can see, hear, taste, feel, smell your presence!

Psalm 132:8  “Arise, O Lord, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.  May your priests (me!) be clothed with righteousness; may your saints (me!) sing for joy!”

Releasing Hope

As vegetation is dying

Leaves breaking free

And falling to the earth

I collected hope this morning.

I picked up acorns

As I walked today,

Each a symbol of hope,

The potential of new life.

As I walk amidst

The dying lives around me

I remember the acorns,

The hope I carry in both pockets.

In the face of death

I empty my pockets

Releasing hope to the hopeless,

Calling things that are not as though they are.