Pentecost Psalm
by John Paul Davis
All Saint’s Episcopal, Chicago, May 1999

It’s raining; three plastic flamingos balance on wire legs in the parish yard, saluting us as we slip out of the wet into the sanctuary’s sacred physics.

Yellow and orange crepe streamers are tongues of fire washing down like covenants from the rafters, are angels ascending and descending the molecules of our prayers like ladders to heaven.

The crucifer pokes his standard through the doorway; the processional begins. We come to You singing Lord, hearts popping and sparking like July 4th sparklers and singing.

The liturgy wraps itself around us, baptizes us and we’re kissed by its rain, caught up in its firey chariot, drenched decent, short of breath.

When the service ends, so does the rain and we watch the children tumble over the shimmering lawn flying weathered, plastic "Jesus Loves Me" kites.

Set me alight Lord, pick me up like a tattered kite, hang me in the sky like a beacon, sing through me in a thousand languages, stand sentry over my beating heart like three flamingos – Father, Son and Holy Ghost all balanced and wet with spring rain.

Wash down from heaven Lord, light me like incense, like an angel, like the pop and flash of a sparkler, hang me like a beacon in the sky, set me tumbling over the grass, Lord, let me shine, let me shine.

John Paul Davis is a writer and teacher living in Oakland, Calif., where he is managing editor of Em Literary.