O consuming fire, O Spirit of love

Yesterday, the weather started off with fits and starts of rain and sun which yielded the lovely rainbow in this picture which I took on the first leg of my journey to the harbor town of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull.  If you look on a map, you'll see that Mull is beside Iona, but you will also see that Tobermory is way up on the northern side of the island, so it takes a good bit of planning to get the right combination of ferry and bus service to get you there and back.  Fortunately, I had planned my schedule out well in advance, checked it twice, and headed out in plenty of time to catch the ferry from Iona to Fionnphort.  There I snagged the second seat from the front on the bus and settled down to stare dreamily out the window at the Hielan coos (Highland cattle).

However, the guy in the seat in front of me had different ideas.  He made some small talk about the weather, which I answered, and then launched into telling and showing me his exact itinerary for the next two days, describing his mother's descent into dementia and the inconvenience this made for him, and then rambling about his grandiose plans for making big money back on Iona.  He was obviously suffering from some mental health issues and felt the need to vent, and he didn't pick up on the polite cues that one gives to tell someone that you'd rather not talk.

This went on for about 30 minutes while the rest of the bus was -- I kid you not -- dead silent.  I could feel the weight of everyone's annoyance at him and the equal weight of their desire not to get involved.  When I at last succumbed to blissful sleep for all of 3 or 4 minutes, he woke me up to ask me if I was taking the ferry to Oban, which I was truthfully able to answer in the negative.  At Craigure, he was first off the bus, and as everyone filed past me to depart, many smiled at me and even murmured something about how polite I had been with him.

Which was nonsense.  Sure, I was verbally kind, nodded and said "yes" and "uh-huh" and so forth at intervals in his story, but in my head, I was shouting, "I'm trying to look out the window and think sweetly meditative thoughts about God and Jesus and stuff, and here you are making me be all pastoral and patient!"

Which is kind of the point.  After all, I am a pastor, but even beyond that, simply as a Christian, is it not my duty (and yours) to listen to those who feel themselves to be unheard, to offer a moment or two of genuine care to someone so clearly broken, to be as Christ himself to them?  On my walk from my friend's home to the ferry that morning, I had kept rhythm with my footsteps by praying this prayer from Elizabeth of Schonau:

O consuming fire, O Spirit of love, descend into the depth of our hearts and there transform us until we are fire of your fire, love of your love, and Christ himself is formed within us.  Amen.

As I listened to this lonely, confused man, those words kept echoing in my head and heart, and even in the midst of my impatience at his interruption of my reverie, I felt the Spirit nudging me to be fire of fire and love of love, to let Christ be formed within me, the Christ who tenderly and patiently loved that man just as much as me or anyone else on that bus, the Christ who tenderly and patiently attends to my complaints and grumblings, the Christ who lived and loved and died and rose and loves us all to hell and back.

So I ask you to pray for healing grace for the un-named stranger on the bus, for his brokenness and the illness and grief and guilt of his family surrounding their reactions to his mother's sickness.  Pray for the Spirit to descend into their hearts and transform their sorrow and uncertainty into calm and acceptance.  And pray for me and for you yourselves to be so consumed with the fire of God's love that we are all transformed into the image and likeness of Christ himself.  Amen.