Pentecost celebrates not only the coming of the Holy Spirit but also its actions in our hearts and minds and in the church.

“TLF” used to be the ultimate acronym, long before BFF came into vogue. Carved on trees under two sets of initials—and likely encompassed by a lopsided heart shape—“TLF” meant that these two persons so designated shared True Love Forever.

We had moved back to the Midwest for my husband’s job, and I was intent on getting our family acclimated to a new city, a new home, and a new school. So I took us all one evening to introduce ourselves to our new pastor. Less than a week later, I opened our front door to find the same pastor on my doorstep.

“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.” That is the advice prisoner Andy Dufresne, the main character in Stephen King’s short story Shawshank Redemption, offers his inmate friend in a letter Andy leaves for Red the night he escapes from Shawshank Prison.

We call on God for strength to live in the Spirit.

We can study the whole history of salvation, we can study the whole of theology, but without the Spirit we cannot understand. It is the Spirit that makes us realize the truth or—in the words of Our Lord—it is the Spirit that makes us know the voice of Jesus.