What was that blood curdling scream Hon? You look ghastly, like you have just seen a ghost." Linda chuckled, peering at me over her reading glasses in that schoolmarmish way that turns on the schoolboy in me every time. The problem was I was so shocked by the trauma that I really didn't appreciate it very much.
"Some huge killer bird with an extremely bad sense of timing flew right from under my feet as I came around the wood pile. It departed with such a thunder that it took my hat right off. Oh, my poor aging bladder. I'll learn that bird a thing or two in just a minute." I spoke over my shoulder as I burned the rug for the bathroom.
A few minutes later, bladder relieved and dignity somewhat restored, Linda led me out of the house and pointed to a pine tree near the lake. "Is that the killer bird dear?" she asked.
Perched in the pine tree was a bird I hadn't seen since I was a juvenile delinquent harassing the wild citizens of the bunchgrass hills in the Rocky Mountain Trench. I used to spend a lot of time on horseback then and I will never forget the way that a flushing mourning dove could put the wind up my quarter horse. The other three-quarters of him would suddenly make like a twisting demon as he tried to plant me head first in the sand. The horse's only thought was to dump his load and escape for home where the birds were smart enough to act like poultry and focused on eggs and grasshoppers. But that was a thousand years ago and at least 480 kilometres south of the Cariboo-Chilcotin.
"Huh!" I said intelligently, "I haven't seen one of those since I was a kid trying to pick my sorry butt out of the sand to chase down my horse in the Kootenays. It's a mourning dove and about 200 kilometres too far north. Besides, what on earth is it doing here in the first week of January? Doesn't it know what a Cariboo winter is like?"
Almost like the weather person was eavesdropping, the next day it went to -37 degrees Celsius and hovered there for 3 weeks. During the day the mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) kept feeding from the bird feeder droppings on the ground by the woodpile under our deck. At nights it wedged in between our hot tub and the wall of the house. Linda hunted up some hay and built a little nest for it there. The dove moved in like it was poultry, staying nigh on to the end of March. He was unexpected, out of place and persistent. And as I reflected upon it, he kind of reminded me of another dove at this time of the year.
We have just been through Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. I love the seasons of the church year. Their gift is that they help me to focus. The focus during Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, at least for us Protestant mainliners, seems to be on God the Father and God the Son. The Holy Spirit is kind of out of season, relegated to the corner of the church year called Pentecost. The Holy Spirit seems out of place and we don't expect much from him this time of year. But if you follow the more ancient traditional readings for this season, perhaps the tradition more influenced by Mark's Gospel which doesn't seem to see the relevance of a birth narrative, Epiphany is all about the Baptism of our Lord. And who shows up at the Baptism of our Lord, unexpected, out of place and persistent, but the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove. And he does so by doing so in all four of the Gospels (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). That kind of coverage isn't even given to the birth of Jesus.
Holy Spirit … unexpected, out of place and persistent. Now that's an Epiphany I can get excited about. To be blunt, I am a little tired of We Three Kings Of Orient Are as the scriptural theme song for Epiphany. Perhaps because I came late to the Christian Faith, and only by happy accident was born into its Presbyterian expression, there is not much about Mainline Protestant traditions that I hold sacred. Oh sure, theologically I am Reformed through and through, but when it comes to liturgy and worship, the stuff of the church year, Linda describes me as an Eastern Orthodox High Church Pentecostal.
And so my Epiphany prayer this year is, Come, Holy Spirit. My desire is way and above an Epiphany of God that I can believe in. I thirst for an Epiphany of God that will get on me like a dove on Jesus, one that will come into my life and get involved in the tangle there, bringing the same power that was bought on the chaos of the face of the deep at creation. I look forward to an unexpected, out of place and persistent manifestation of God in my life, an Epiphany where the Holy Spirit of God will blow over the face of the deep darkness of my winter soul. I yearn for the kind of Epiphany that C.H. Spurgeon prayed for: "Let our wintry state suffice us for coldness and indifference; when the Lord creates a spring within, let our sap flow with vigour, and our branch blossom with high resolve. O Lord, if it be not spring time in my chilly heart, I pray thee make it so, for I am heartily weary of living at a distance from thee. Oh! the long and dreary winter, when wilt thou bring it to an end? Come, Holy Spirit, and renew my soul! quicken thou me! restore me, and have mercy on me! This very night I would earnestly implore the Lord to take pity upon his servant, and send me a happy revival of spiritual life!"
