When the Wind Becomes Breath And The Spirit Lights Us on Fire

We call it sheep running when the wind moves in the tall grass. It’s a glorious sight, that wind in the grass, not something you’d think glorious like a mountain range, but that grass up and headed out, lush from a spot of rain and warm days, it’s glorious, and if we cut and bale it with enough chance to dry, it will feed Mrs Horse and the neighbors’ cows. It’s the nesting ground of meadow birds—redwing black birds, bobolinks and king birds. Dick sissles have arrived.

We drove Mrs. Horse into the living, flowing grass, alive as the current in a river, only the grass stands at her nose, easy to snatch like a woman pulling weeds, her mouth lime green, grass stems sticking out like the farmer who picks a stalk to stick between his teeth.

She comes round, using her hind legs to lift herself as she breaks into a trot. She becomes light in the bridle. Light. You are the light of the world. This little light of mine, I’m gonna’ let it shine. I’m relaxed, hands by my thighs, finding the fun, her trot easy. Bruce and I see a pair of Bobolinks fly up. And a king bird and a meadow lark, their names prettier than their dull brown coats. (We’ve seen a purple finch come to the feeder and Baltimore Orioles and a cardinal, but the dull birds are in the fields.) The swallows swoop and wheel around us. At night I walk in the barn and they fly out. Bruce says they fly under the door to get back in after I close it up. (I prefer Mrs. Horse stay in the barn at night and shut all the doors so she has the run of the barn.) The swallows have raised a few fledglings that peek out of their mud nests. Those sculpted mud huts are wonder, bowing out from the barn rafters, with no way for cats to climb to them.

The plan is to plow up half the field after it’s cut. Our hay guy hopes to plant timothy, orchard and alfalfa because we have so many weeds and his cattle need alfalfa. My birdwatcher friend says that will destroy the birds’ habitat, though it’s still grass coming. He says our hay field is rare because there aren’t many grasslands in DeKalb County. Farmers would as soon plant cash crops—corn, beans, and wheat.

Hay is hard work. It is a gambler’s work because you need to pick three or four dry days in a row for it to cure. The adage make hay when the sun shines holds. Our hay still stands despite a month of dry days, our hay guy not available then. We need small squares to set in our barn loft. It’s hard work to stack hay on the wagon, pull it off, and hoist it to the loft. Bruce stacks it the way he wants. I’m told the old barns are held together by the weight of hay stored there.

I don’t like to drive Mrs. Horse when it’s windy because the wind can spook her. (High wind has been my excuse not to drive) And this wind was brisk enough to call for my winter coat. But I was relaxed. She was relaxed. Birds flying up didn’t bother her.

The wind is combing the leaves hard like my mother when she hit a tangle and it hurt. There was not gentle twittering of the leaves in stillness. There was no brushed back undersides up either. These flowed in the wind as hard as a current pushes freshwater grasses in a river.

Jesus said the Spirit blows where it will. I think of this in the hard winds, the trees bending with it, their voices a kind of praise. The breath takingness of it. I think about my breath—in and out, in and out, and sometimes a deep sigh that catches the relief of good air. Our lungs seem like the strongest thing about us, but are so, so fragile. We can breathe calm for ourselves. I have breathed to keep hold of Mrs. horse when she is about to turn tail and run.

I’m waiting on the results of a CT scan my lung doc ordered because my breath isn’t quite as good as last year, but still normal. He is careful. The tech said it’s for interstitial lung disease, something I know about. It can be caused by breathing moldy hay or autoimmune disease. I do this because hay can be moldy but not be obvious. Mrs. Horse’s breath has been more important than mine. Breath. Breathe. Lost breath. No more freedom of wind combing grass, shoving leaves back, no free Holy Spirit who breathes in, breathes out with us. Bruce and I sat in vigil when his mother died, her breath sounding like a race horse held in check, held to a gallop, not a run, around the early morning oval and spread dirt of Churchill downs. Her lost breath. Her quiet body. Called for silence. The sacred.

The Spirit Moves Over the Face

The Spirit moved over the face of the deep. Murk. A smooth ripple over chaos. A hand pounding water so it turns to rock and shoved into the foundations of the earth. Chemicals and gas bubble from the ocean floor. Water from the rock. Water that is rock. I just learned the Kola Superdeep bore hole was drilled seven miles into the earth’s crust. Surprisingly liquid water and hydrogen were found at the bottom. The temperature--356 degrees Fahrenheit—was far hotter than they realized.1 Scientists have found there is water held in a rock called Ringwoodite, that it can be found in the transition zone between 250 and 410 miles deep. Scientists think this water makes up three times the amount on the surface, makes up deep rock in a solid, not ice, form.2

When the writer of Genesis said God separated the waters above and the waters below, maybe he meant he parted the oceans from water frozen in rock hundreds of miles deep.

On Fire for The Lord

When I was a child, I was told to stay on fire for the Lord. On fire like the flames that dropped on the disciples when the Holy Spirit whooshed in and they spoke in languages foreigners could understand. They spoke the good news Jesus broke death’s back. On fire to seek God and back in those days tell people about him. On fire, the flames of hell, licked on the edges of my imagination, I wept for my friends to know Jesus, to be delivered from that. Nowadays I think we’re all going to be salted with fire, a fire that will mold and shape us into the people God had in mind when he made us. God a consuming fire. The prophet Isaiah says:

The sinners in Jerusalem shake with fear. Terror seizes the godless. “Who can live with this devouring fire?” they cry. “Who can survive this all-consuming fire?” He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands, lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking on evil, he will dwell on the heights; his place of defense will be the fortresses of rocks; his bread will be given him; his water will be sure. Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.3

The Spirit moved across the face of our church, across the face of our country. We called it the Charismatic Movement. People spoke in tongues and chanted “Praise you Jesus. Praise you Jesus.” Their voices sounded rushed, like their chant would call down the Spirit, call down wild tongues that weren’t their own. Some seemed to think you weren’t filled with the Holy Spirit if you didn’t speak in God’s language. I didn’t. Those were the years our youth leader said you weren’t much a Christian if you hadn’t lead people to Christ in the last little while. I hadn’t. I wept, while I walked our mile long road at night, longing for my high school friends to know Jesus. I didn’t hesitate to offer my own hellfire and brimstone sermons. No I didn’t hesitate. And was not well liked. (Though my classmates begged me to come to our fortieth reunion. I begged off because I was so fogged up mentally I wasn’t sure I’d remember how to get to the party.) I didn’t claim the label charismatic until a devil handsome young man with shining eyes at college said, “Of course you’re charismatic” because I knew my Bible.

Finally, I wanted to tell you, the other night I was awakened by light flashing in our windows, so fast and so hard it looked like a war. I got up, unplugged the phone, checked the weather and saw a line of storms, mostly orange moving west to east just north of us. I …