Why Is the Sky Blue (and other unanswerable questions)

A persistent encyclopedia "hawker" at a long-ago Kansas State Fair asked me an important question: "How will you answer your child's question, 'Why is the sky blue?' "

At the time, I was a reporter and editor at The Hutchinson News. I was responsible for state fair coverage, so I was wandering the fair, looking for stories. Besides being a reporter, I was also a mom to a toddler. So the question did make me think - then and throughout the years as both Jill and Brent asked their share of difficult questions.

Thankfully, I resisted the urge to pony up the big bucks for an enormous set of encyclopedias, which would have become an expensive set of paperweights and flower pressers in this day of push-button technology and information.

But I again remembered that salesman's question about the blue sky when riding with our inquisitive 3-year-old granddaughter this weekend. We were on our way to a Topeka cemetery to put flowers on the graves of Randy's maternal grandparents, Laura and Alvin Ritts.

Alvin Ritts was a Methodist pastor. He died when my mother-in-law was in grade school.

Kinley hasn't had a lot of encounters with death - and that's a good thing. But she had plenty of questions:

"Did she die on a cross?" (Jesus' crucifixion is the death she's heard about the most.)
"Where is she?"
"Is she under the ground?"
"Is she under the grass?"
"Why is her soul in heaven?"
"Why? Why? Why? Why? WHY?"

A man who was decorating graves nearby was also the target of questions:

"Is he a grandpa?" (We were looking for a grandma, you know.)

We did the best we could with hard questions, and Jill finally diverted attention to another subject. (Kinley has lots of questions about everything. She reminds me of another little girl I knew long ago. Payback is a wonderful thing.) 

Kinley just couldn't grasp the concept of "visiting" grandparents who weren't actually there to see with her two eyes. It's kind of like trying to "see" the wind.

We probably were as inept at explaining that concept while at the Discovery Center in Topeka Friday afternoon, though there were a couple of experiments that helped.

Our encounters with Kinley and hard questions came back to both Randy and me during Sunday's worship service. We celebrated Pentecost, the "birthday" of the church. In Acts 2, it says:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Acts 2: 1-4

Our historic sanctuary is beautiful anyway, but thanks to Pastor Ben & Britt Bradley for their work in transforming it for Pentecost.

Just like Kinley's search for a grandma she couldn't see, I search for a Holy Spirit described as rushing wind and tongues of fire. Those aren't exactly stagnant images, are they? God's presence and the Holy Spirit should change me. It can happen slowly. Sometimes it's in an instant. But it's moving, not stagnant.

We Kansans know wind. It can be a pleasant breeze on a hot summer day or a howling gale that thunders through trees and brings down heavy branches during a storm.

Pentecost isn't just a "story" that happened long ago. God isn't finished "moving" us and doing new things even today. The Holy Spirit comes to open our eyes and show us how to be more connected, have mercy, offer forgiveness and transform the world with justice and love.

But it requires movement. I have to leave a beautifully appointed sanctuary and go out into a messy, noisy, complicated world. As Pastor Ben says, "We have inherited the work."

***

Sometimes, the work takes us out of our comfort zones. That was aptly illustrated by our choir song Sunday. Mac Knight is in his first year directing our little church choir. When he handed out "Baba Yetu" at a Wednesday night rehearsal several months ago, we had our doubts.

He knew it would take months to teach us the foreign words and help us figure out the rapid-fire rhythms. He had it scheduled for the choir's "swan song" before our summer hiatus. At the time, I don't think he realized the scheduled Sunday happened to coincide with Pentecost.

But how appropriate that the two converged! On a day when we read about the Holy Spirit coming and each person hearing the message in their native language (Acts 2: 5-21), our choir sang "The Lord's Prayer" in Swahili. God is still speaking today - no matter the language!

Photo by Arlene Lickiss

To hear "Baba Yetu," click on this link. (You can also "like" Stafford First United Methodist Church on Facebook to hear the anthem.)

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Pastor Ben and Arlene spent a lot of time transforming the sanctuary at the Stafford United Methodist Church for Pentecost on Sunday. We have a gorgeous and historic sanctuary anyway. It was even more beautiful.

But the transformation truly isn't just about sewing together fabric and dangling precariously from a ladder to hang it from fishing line.

It's about discovering the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in my life today - not just in Bible times. Today.

When the Holy Spirit comes (as told in Acts 2: 1-21), it comes with a sound like the rush of a violent wind and in tongues of fire.

Our other Scripture lesson for the day was John 7: 37-39:

³⁷ On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. ³⁸ Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” ³⁹ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

Living water ... rushing wind ... tongues of fire. Those aren't exactly stagnant images, as they?

As Pastor Ben said, "God's presence and the Holy Spirit change us."

It can happen slowly. Sometimes it's in an instant. But it's moving, not stagnant.

Living, moving water shapes canyons, moves boulders and changes the landscape.

Fire can be contained in a backyard fire pit, but its flames still reach up toward the night sky. Or it can race through a burning building.

We Kansans know wind. It can be a pleasant breeze on a hot summer day or a howling gale that thunders through trees and brings down heavy branches during a storm. It can be a dove kite gently rustling in air-conditioned breeze in a Kansas sanctuary.

As Pastor Ben shared, Pentecost isn't just a "story" that happened long ago. God isn't finished "moving" us and doing new things even today. The Holy Spirit comes to open our eyes and show us how to be more connected, have mercy, offer forgiveness and transform the world with justice and love.

But it requires movement. I have to leave a beautifully appointed sanctuary and go out into a messy, noisy, complicated world. As Pastor Ben says, "We have inherited the work."

The wind theme continued past church for me yesterday. At 2 PM,  the wind was blowing through a small Kansas cemetery as two young soldiers from Fort Riley honored a World War II veteran and his family. It was the service for my Great Uncle Oric Neelly, my Grandpa Shelby Neelly's youngest brother. Oric was the final one of the 10 children to be laid to rest.

Oric died on June 5, one day before the 70th anniversary of D-Day. He served for 36 months in the European Theatre in Africa, Italy, France and Germany. As a member of the Signal Corp in the First Armored Signal Battalion, he was aboard the SS Bliss when it was torpedoed off the coast of France prior to the invasion. He was rescued by a Frenchman in a small fishing boat. He rejoined his Army unit and went on to serve in the Invasion of Sicily. He was in Germany at the end of the war and helped liberate a concentration camp 40 miles from Berlin.

In the service bulletin, his family shared one of his favorite poems, "Who Has Seen the Wind?" by Christina Rossetti. It was one he recited often:

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by. 

Yesterday afternoon, the breeze picked up the mournful notes of "Taps" as another soldier was laid to rest. The final note gave me goosebumps as it softly drifted away into an overcast sky.

Whether being moved by the Holy Spirit or moved by the story of one of our nation's heroes, the challenge is there to live - not stagnate - and to make a difference.