when Pentecost was past

So someone took up the microphone and addressed the people: “ Yes, we are very scared — these are troubled times.

We hear of rioting in city streets
angry crowds marching and shouting; there is looting, buildings set on fire, indiscriminate killings.
We seek a safe place to hide.
We stick together — safety in numbers. And we nervously wait.”

Well, so here’s a story:
we’re all together in one place,
then comes a wind-storm;
the doors rattle, windows shake, furniture trembles, the sky grows dark at noon.
Then suddenly
we all burst out singing
and clapping hands, and dancing
and we feel indescribably happy
filled with immeasurable joy
and want to hug each other
and hug everyone
and no one is sick or ugly;

and it’s like the childrens’ song:

Stretch up and reach as high as the sky clap your hands and swing around stamp your feet upon the ground
and shout: Alleluia.

And we are all shouting for joy, and hugging each other and crying for happiness
we want to sing and sing
this one word:

Love, love, love —
the stern, firm love —not the squishy, mushy kind, We know it from long ago
but we’re always forgetting to hold it tight
And we keep on finding it has new meanings,
so never give up, cling on through the night,
and always stay together,
pick up the fallen ones

cuddle the lonely ones
nourish the hungry ones,
shouting for joy as we all go on
Love, love, love —
calling across the mountains
and over the tumbling seas
through days and months and centuries finally whispering as you die
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

(Wendie Shaffer, Trinity Sunday, 2024)