Pentecost ©
By
Michael Casey
I was at Mass last night, Saturday night counts for Sunday, if you are not up to speed with all things Catholic. Don’t hold my Faith against me, I’m more of an Altruist than anything. As I listened to the sermon and I’ve missed a few, my scar tissue throbbed and I gasped then I had a few more spasms of pain. So I was speaking in tongues myself, tongues of pain, at least I did not swear in church, our priest is a barrel of a man and very strong, he could have hauled me out.
He had a couple of Christenings to do as well, this can prolong the length of the Mass, I say prolong because when the seats are hard wood and you have your Arthur with you, your arthritis then. Ok, I won’t bore you about pain, though if you look on the NHS direct website your eyes may be opened.
When I was up for 2 hours in the middle or the night I discovered the term Frozen Shoulder, so when I was so exhausted that I’d sleep through any pain I went to bed with another piece of knowledge to add to the Soup, the soup being my life experience. When I talk to you I am ladling out my words from the soup, and that’s why you get bits in my words, that get stuck between your teeth, or trapped in your mind.
So what has all this got to do with Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit arrived and suddenly common men, fishermen were able to speak in tongues. To be able to talk across the nationalities, these guys are from around here but we can all understand them. Imagine a tourist bus gets lost in Birmingham and they meet me, and I can speak Japanese, or Russian and Polish and German and French or Spanish and so on. But not only speak these languages one by one but as I speak they simultaneously hear my words in their own language.
Its almost a science fiction concept, in a previous piece, called Redemption there is such an idea. Why did Pentecost happen, if you like it was like Twitter suddenly emerging, or a Crowd Funding page on Facebook. The word got out because the crew had the tools to spread that word, just as they had spread their nets when a crew on the fishing boat.
So the gift of tongues of words enable Christianity to get out into the world. It went viral so to speak, the news was transmitted all over the Roman empire. It would be like an MTV explosion in today’s world, wall to wall exposure via the gift of tongues. Saul had to be zapped on the road to Damascus, before he saw the light, a bit like a Hard Rocker being electrocuted at a gig and then changing his ways. Saul became Paul and then travelling more than any Rock Band every has.
I’ve given you all examples so bring it to life, just like the Evanescence song. It was an explosion, like a music download becoming available. It was a Wrecking Ball to what had happened previously. Yes I know my choice of cartoons to put in your minds is not Orthodox, but has it enabled you to understand what it must have been like after the Holy Spirit did his stuff.
Penecost is for everybody though, not just Christians, and no I’m not trying to convert you. Somebody once asked me about Christianity and I said don’t bother. Not by way a negative, but rather to get him, or Mark as his name was, to think more deeply about it. If its too easy, like getting a Music download, then the faith whatever faith it is will not take root, Parable of the Sower for all you Bible students out there.
I’m fortunate because whatever faith I have comes from 1920s Kerry Ireland and goes back 100s of years. If you read To The Very Gates Of Hell, you’ll understand a little more. I’m writing a piece of fiction there that mixes faith and fiction and pathos and even comedy all together, like a girl with badly plaited hair. See I’m almost getting intellectual in my explanations.
While writing that piece it segwayed into another about the Spaceman and the Archangel, which is again comedy and pathos. Do I try and hide the pathos under the comedy? Or do I just stir the soup and ladle the words out on the page? In actual fact I do not really know, I’m not intelligent enough to forward plan everything I do or say. I write the piece with my fingers, as it streams down from the soup in my brain. It would be so boring to plan in advance, I just have the title in my head then I begin.
When I finish as I read it back to myself or my girls, I’ll realise did I hit the nail on the head or did the ideas drift. Most times I’m pleased that it’s even better than it felt as I wrote it. As I’m writing its one sentence at a time. When I read it back its a whole entity. If you like when a tapestry is revealed, when I write I’m seeing the underside, when I finish writing I flip it over and all is revealed.
Does all this sound so pretentious? This would be classed as one of my serious pieces, that’s why I stick to the straight comedy if that is not a contradiction in terms, because any readers I have prefer the straight comedy.
I’ve talked about my own experience with words. The trouble is that words can be lost on people, that’s why we all need a Pentecost of our own. When I talk to my nephew we are on the same wavelength and and sometimes his sister who has a first in English cannot keep up. Its about wavelengths not intelligence.
If you are kindred spirits then the hum between you is very high, the ping and the pong, if you think of people playing that game. To some onlookers it is unbelievable. Watching footballers do tricks with balls, or watching a game and the shot is just unbelievable is another example.
There are many examples in sport and in art and theatre how the skill is truly amazing. That’s when the audience gives a standing ovation. I saw Candide on a sloping stage at the Rep maybe 30 years ago that was GREAT. As was Jason Donovan’s bum when he did the Rocky Horror show on the same stage.
A personal Pentecost gives us not just the gift of tongues, but the ability to connect with all sorts of people on all sorts of levels. Like a politician in the days when we thought they really were men of the people. There are still a few good ones out there, you can vote for yours on Thursday, even if you need a microscope to find them, but there are some good ones in all parties, I won’t name names as it might lose them their seats,let your conscience be your guide as Jiminy Cricket might say.
A personal Pentecost may take a lifetime to achieve, but just like the Long March in China or the One Small Step on the moon but it is worth it. Being able to connect is a great gift and great fun, like being a concierge at a busy hotel. You won’t always please everybody all of the time, they may not want to listen, or may be only half listening, they may even totally misunderstand you.
But when it works then it really works. Like Angels the song by Robbie Williams, or one of my poems, when people look at me in disbelief and say “what you wrote that?”. Yes, even a fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham with tooth paste down the front of his jumper half of the time can write the odd great piece.
I’ll leave it there for now my girls have just come home from their church, their Penecost service. And that in the end is what its all about, Service. A personal pentecost allows us all to be of service to each other, to cut through all the rubbish in life and to be of service to each other whatever our mother tongue is.
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