Sandstorm Leads to Holy Spirit

         I am a sucker for good stories.  In some ways I don’t care too much about the details, as long as the story is a good one.  One way I decide stories are good is if they somehow instruct---teach how to live and act in our world.  I think all of us continue to be in need of stories that teach us these things.  And certainly our young people need stories.  Stories are so much better than other forms of education.  Lectures don’t really do it. 

   
        I appreciate it when I bump into a story without even knowing I was looking for one.  This happened recently as I was reading a Catholic periodical I routinely check out.  I am not sure it is true, but somehow I think I probably learn more from groups that are different from me.  The fact that this story originates within a Catholic context is not that important.  It could have originated with a Jewish or Muslim context and basically told the same story.  Let me recount it and we draw our lessons that are inherent in the story.
   
        The story is written by Fred Mercadante.  Mercadante is the campus minister at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.  I know Scranton is a Jesuit University in the rust-belt area in the eastern part of that Quaker state.  The article bears a longish title, but reveals its intent: “At Holy Spirit in Las Vagas, desert retreatants found room at the inn.”  Indeed, the context of the story is a bunch of Scranton college kids heading to Death Valley in Nevada for a spiritual retreat.
   
        At the end of the fall semester, the students headed west to participate in what they called, “A Desert Experience Retreat.”  Essentially, they were going to explore contemplative spirituality within the context of national parks.  As one who teaches a class on contemplative spirituality, I was intrigued.  I try to build in some experiential elements into my class, but it has not occurred to me to head to the desert.  They found themselves west of Las Vegas the evening of their first day.  It was a cold overnight, so they headed the next Sunday morning to a local Catholic high school, where a local parish was having their services while their new church buildings were being constructed.  I loved that the parish was named Holy Spirit!
   
        They were warmly received and began to experience hospitality that unknowingly would play a role at the end of the story.  Father Bill, the local priest, singled them out for blessings and good wishes for their trek to Death Valley and their contemplative experience.  They were fed and sent on their way to the desert.  Their week was a good one in almost every respect.  The weather co-operated and things went very well.  That is, things went well until the last day.  The potential problem was the possibility of a sandstorm their last afternoon.  That’s where the story really begins.
   
        As they got to their campsite late that last afternoon, the wind was making a mess of things.  The author puts it graphically, “But on arrival at our campsite, we see tent poles snapped and nylon ripped in multiple places.  The tents are down and out.”  The group is now on to Plan B.  The campus minister calls a friend in Vegas, but the friend’s parish has no place for the group.  But the friend mentions the Holy Spirit parish and gives the church number, which the campus minister calls. 
   
        Sure enough, Louie, the youth minister at Holy Spirit, offers a place and the Scranton kids leave the desert for Holy Spirit.  The second visit to Holy Spirit is the story.  Listen to their first-hand account.  “Every single one of us was blown away like tents in a sandstorm by how this parish welcomed us and how well they took care of us.  As we said goodbye to the parish for a second time, I knew something special had happened.”  Something special is always the work of the Holy Spirit.  That’s not simply doctrine; it’s experience.
   
        The story becomes instructive.  The story of the students teaches: “We went to the desert to learn and practice contemplation and to help college students journey deeper into an adult faith.”  In some sense this happened.  No one should discount the week’s experience in the desert, but that’s not the story. 
   
        The real story continues with this teaching.  “However, one of the greatest teachings of the week was how our students learned what it means to be ‘church’ from their experience with Holy Spirit Parish.”  Church is always about the people and not the building.  The Holy Spirit parish was not even in their building, but they were a church.  As the students reflected, “We were strangers, and they welcomed us.  We needed a place to stay, and they made sure that there was ‘room in the inn.’” 
   
        This should sound biblical.  Here was a church---a group of people under the influence of the Holy Spirit---doing what Jesus commands all of us to do.  I am inspired by the people of the parish.  Again, I don’t think it was primarily because they were Catholic, although I give them full credit.  It was because they were people of the Holy Spirit. 
   
I can now imagine Jesus saying to the rest of us, “Now, go and do likewise.”