Pentecost

Tomorrow is Pentecost - actually it began this evening, and I attended a Pentecost ordination today. Pentecost is one of my favourite feast days in the church, because it is basically the birthday of the church.

What many people think of when they think of Pentecost are the charisms and special graces of that day - speaking in tongues and other spirit filled activities. But the one grace that came that day - the grace that impresses me - is courage. Courage is what the church was built on, and what sets a saint apart. Faith can give people the strength and the steadfastness to walk where angels fear to tread. This is the true "moving of mountains" that Jesus spoke of.

I was reading today of Cassie Barnall, one of the teens murdered in the Columbine massacre. A story surfaced after the shootings that one of the killers had asked her if she believed in God. When she answered, "Yes, I believe" (the story goes), she was shot. One of my favourite singers, Michael W Smith, wrote a song about this girl, called "This is Your Time. In it he asks what the listener would answer if asked "Do you believe?" in Cassie's place.

What if tomorrow, and what if today,
Faced with the question,
Oh what would you say?

Now did the incident in question happen? Did Harris or Klebold ask Cassie Barnall if she believed in God? The girl sitting next to her under a table did not remember hearing her asking this - she only remembers her praying, which drew the attention of one of the killers. One website, positiveatheism.com positively crows about this different rendering of the tale, as if the whole spiritual experience of the human race rests on the accuracy of this story.

But the fact remains, the girl was praying, right til the end. Faced with death, she turned to the one strength there is that lets us face death - the strength given to us by God. Does it really matter what her words were? She spent those last few minutes in the best way it is possible to spend them. She spent them with God.

Whether Cassie Barnall faced this question in her last minutes or not, we all face this question at some point in our lives. "Do you believe?" any of us is asked to testify, usually in a circumstance when it is at least socially safer to answer, "No I do not," or failing that, to answer with a polite demurral where we only admit to being "spiritual", or simply mention our affiliation - Catholic, Methodist, Jewish, Muslim.

What will you say? Whatever you believe, Christian or not, will you stand up for it? Even with your life?

What if tomorrow, and what if today,
Faced with the question,
Oh what would you say?