Bubble Blessings

Last year, we actually forgot to celebrate Pentecost! So much has the wheel turned full circle from the Charismatic revival in Openshaw. This year, we were determined not to let the festival pass by. But it is actually half term and we are both technically 'on holiday.' So no new material, then.

But we focussed upon the Spirit as wind and asked the congregation to 'draw the wind.' This produced the expected variety of images which sparked some interesting discussion.

I insisted on singing the old - and rather naff - On Tiptoe by Maggie Duran and Jodi Page (Fresh Sounds for those too young to have come across it). It contains the wonderful verse:

If life were filled with bubbles,

they’d glisten and they’d burst;

if life were filled with jewels,

they’d line the rich one’s purse;

but life is filled with water

that flows from depths of love,

it flows to fill your weariness

with blessings from above.

So it was that we took our prayers of concern out into the car park and blew them out to be blown by the Spirit of God across the boarded up houses, broken glass and barbed wire of our 'community.' The blessing of God, indeed.

At that moment, of course, members of the Pentecost church, who use our building at lunchtime, arrived to be showered by the Pentecostal bubbles. Somehow, not, I suspect the way they were expecting to celebrate Pentecost!