Good morning…
Last Wednesday morning, my calendar was comfortably full.
8:00 am – coffee with my daughter before her workday.
10:00 am – spiritual direction session #1.
11:15 am – spiritual direction session #2.
Over our first cup of coffee, I received a text canceling the first session due to my client’s overflowing workload. Over our second cup of coffee, I received a text canceling the second session since my next client woke with a fever.
“Look at that!” I thought to myself. “God carved out my day in a brand new way.”
The Spirit of God completely disrupted my plans, making space for me to join our Women’s Summer Book Study, a fairly rare opportunity I thoroughly enjoy. What mutually beneficial gifts we shared for ninety minutes as we unpacked our cutting edge thoughts by Zoom. The week’s assigned chapters spoke directly into the some complex issues I have been wrestling with.
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Excerpt from In My Grandmother’s House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit by Yolanda Pierce
When to speak and when to be silent was a topic of much discussion in my grandmother’s house. Children were expected to be silent unless an adult was talking to them. They were expected to be silent for hours and hours of church services, even as some services tarried overnight. And they were certainly expected to be silent at school, where model behavior was expected in front of mainly white teachers. The routine notation on my elementary school report cards – “talks too much in class” – led to many tears and punishments, along with the stern rebuke that the Holy Ghost needed to teach me when to speak and when to be silent.
Invoking the Holy Ghost was a serious matter in my childhood home, where, by tradition of the King James Version of the Bible, we used “Holy Ghost” rather than the “Holy Spirit” to refer to the third member of the Trinity.
The church women of my childhood taught me that the Holy Ghost was both Comforter and Disrupter. I witnessed, Sunday after Sunday, as the power of the Holy Ghost was called upon to soothe, heal, and comfort the afflicted and the broken. The Holy Ghost Comforter was a gentleman, a sweet and gentle spirit. And yet the church mothers reminded me that the Holy Ghost was a Disrupter, too – a being who, through signs and wonders, unknown tongues and bodily praise, could disrupt a worship service or stop a sermon or bring forth an unsolicited testimony. These Black church mothers had a highly developed pneumatology – although the fancy academic term for the theology of the Holy Spirit would never have crossed their lips. They were true trinitarians. That is, the Holy Ghost was not the neglected stepchild of the Trinity, as it is throughout many ecclesial spaces; it was an active and engaging power. The gifts of the Spirit – including healing, miracles, prophecy, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues – were spiritual works that I regularly witnessed in my childhood. For those living on the underside of history, for the disenfranchised and dispossessed, for the “least of these,” the Holy Ghost can supernaturally disrupt time and space and miraculously make a way out of no way.
As my grandmother prayed – loudly and in my presence – over each “talks too much in class” report card, she petitioned that I would receive discernment regarding when to speak and when to be silent, when to comfort and when to disrupt. I have no trouble believing that she prophetically saw the woman I would become: someone who is compelled to speak truth even when her voice shakes. And because I am only now coming to terms with my grandmother’s spiritual gifts, perhaps she could even foresee the future me that would be called to preach, teach, and lead institutions.
…Learning the difference between the ghostly silences into which we must speak truth to power and the holy silences from which we can draw strength and comfort may take a lifetime (69-70).
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I did not expect to speak of the difficult struggle burdening my heart with this small group of wise women. Yet the Holy Ghost disrupted my morning plan, canceling my appointments and compelling me to speak important truth even as my voice was shaking. My ongoing prayer now becomes, “Holy Ghost, as You see fit, please expand Your loving comfort within my heart, empowering me to use my trembling voice each time the moment is right.”
One night, the Lord spoke to Paul in a supernatural vision and said, “Don’t ever be afraid. Speak the words that I give you and don’t be intimidated, because I am with you. No one will be able to hurt you, for there are many in this city whom I call my own” (Acts 18:9-10, TPT). The footnote for Acts 18:10 reads: “Somewhat more explicit in the Aramaic, this is the great “I AM” who is speaking with Paul, assuring him of God’s presence.”
With great assurance, the presence of the great “I AM” is also with us. As the Trinity sees fit, the Holy Ghost teaches us when to speak and when to be silent, when to comfort and when to disrupt. I agree with Yolanda, “Learning the difference between the ghostly silences into which we must speak truth to power and the holy silences from which we can draw strength and comfort may take a lifetime.”
Some of the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell your followers not to say these things.”
But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if my followers didn’t say them, these stones would shout them” (Luke 19:39-40, ERV).
…Sue…
