Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25
The Holy Ghost is one crazy bird. Unpredictable, line smudging, doctrine shrugging, shape shifting—he’s the renegade of the Godhead, a scofflaw, the mind-bending wildfire of the divine concoction. Just when you think you’ve got him pegged he pulls a one-eighty on you, leaving you and your comfortable theology in the dust.
The Bird is God’s improvisation master. The Father slaps down the back beat; the Son builds the syncopated motif; and the Bird careens up and down the scale like he’s possessed. The Bird doesn’t have to play any one note at any one time or place. His only rule is that it makes music. The Father and Son trust him implicitly. They’ve been playing together for a long time and know how it goes. The Bird knows what the boys want; they want him to fly, because when he flies they fly with him.
And the Bird, he feels every beat of the Father’s heart like it was his own. And the Bird tunes his pipes to the Son’s harmonics which hold the ache and joy of the whole world in them. And the Bird lets himself be possessed by the Father and Son, and in that surrender he becomes them and they become him. And when they become each other the Bird is free, free from notation, free from even the music itself. And the Bird soars, wails, growls, screams, bubbles, rumbles, simmers, stabs, and caresses. And as the Bird twists and plummets and veers, heedless of all but the song, the Father and Son are caught up in his fathomless flight and rise with him, raptured into self-transcending glory.
This is the way it’s been from the before the beginning. The Father, the Son, and the Ghost. Theirs is the music of the spheres that folks used to hear a long time ago, the soundtrack of the universe. But then the theorists moved in and turned it into Tin Pan Alley, jingles by number. The explanations came. The how-to books were written and the floor was pasted with colored diagrams. And even to those who still wanted to dance it felt like calisthenics to the plunk of an out-of-tune piano.
But the Bird’s still crazy after all these years, baby. He’s still breaking the rules and making music with the YHWH Trio. They mostly play transitional venues now, but every once in a while they’ll do a surprise gig in the big houses. You can catch them if you watch for them. But the Bird is a free spirit so you’ll have to keep on your toes if you want to hear him play.
Just remember, if you happen to catch a gig, the Bird takes requests only from the Father and his right-hand man.
