I do not consider myself to be a superstitious person. But when I see a black cat cross my path, it does occur to me that the event is supposed to be bad luck. Or I used to think those thoughts, until Cocoa came to us.
Cocoa is a black cat. He came to us as a kitten. My son Jacob claims that he wandered into the laundry room, but I don't believe that. I think Cocoa wandered onto our driveway and Jake led him the rest of the way into the house. For a long time, we thought Cocoa was female. Even the vet, at first glance, told us that “she” was healthy. We couldn't get “her” to stop peeing in the house. So we returned to the vet and discovered that Cocoa was a boy, hence the spraying. We changed his name to Mr. Cokes or the Cokanator.
The Cokanator is the most loving cat that I have ever known. His purr is so loud that it seems to rock his whole body. He will let my boys manhandle him and he never scratches. He is one great cat.
So now, when I see a black cat cross my path, I do not worry. It might be the Cokanator! I smile and wish it were him. The superstition of black cats has been wiped out of my mind by my love for this one cat.
There are three major holidays in the Christian tradition, a trinity of holy days. We celebrate two of them well, with major feasts and presents, candy and family gatherings. Christmas and Easter are done well. But the third holiday, Pentecost, has been lost. It is supposed to be as big a celebration as Christmas or Easter, but it is not. Only the faithful come to the Pentecost celebration. You can't see any of those Christmas and Easter Christians. Pentecost cannot be coapted by the mass media. Hallmark can't seem to make it a mandatory card day. Presents don't seem to work either. No, this holiday is hard to package because it is truly unpredictable and even a little bit scary.
On this day, the Holy Spirit radiates out from God to the first Christians. Light shines from their heads, they speak in foreign languages, and the Church is born. The story is wild, crazy and scary. You just can't make it short and sweet. It is radical stuff.
One of the reasons why we don't know what to do with Pentecost is that we are afraid of the Holy Spirit. We can't see God's spirit, we can't control it or order it or even predict where it is moving next. When it comes to matters of the Spirit, we know very little and so we are afraid. It seems better to semi-ignore the Holy Spirit. After all, if we give the Sprit the attention that it deserves, we might end up following it. And then, well, who knows what might happen to us.
The only way to overcome our fear of God's Spirit is to engage with it. Open your heart and let it inside, just like Jacob let our black cat into our house. Let the Spirit inside your heart and let it sit with you. Trust in God and you will find that the same Spirit, which can be strong and unpredictable, can also be lovely and trustworthy. It is meant to be a gift to us from God.
Over the years, I have become grateful that we cannot seem to package Pentecost. We don't know what to make of this crazy day. But we can allow that Spirit inside and find that it is incredibly loving. And when we learn to love the Spirit of God, everything changes.
