I recently read a quote by Barbara Crafton, Episcopal priest and prolific writer and retreat leader. She was speaking about the difficult topic of forgiveness, but she could have been referring to any thorny issue on the spiritual journey, anything that asks a lot of us, or that is unclear, or seems fruitless.

She wrote... “You have help... God has lines in this play. The spiritual life is not a project you do all by yourself that you present to God. It’s a thing that God gives to you.”

Then, she concluded with: “The whole of spiritual life is discovering this is true.”

My husband and I have just finished visiting my parents in their new apartment. And I mean new: After almost 50 years in the same New York City apartment, they have moved to Connecticut, near New Haven, for various reasons: health, work, time to go.

They are happy, the new place is wonderful, and I was inordinately glad to see familiar objects, newly arranged, but still familiar. I was also way too gratified to see some of the same striking colors from the old place in the new one—the turquoise bedroom walls, for instance.

In other words, I needed to see that things had stayed the same; I needed a visceral experience of the tried and true, the familiar. OK, say it: I needed reassurance, some bulwark against change.

It's summer (almost). Do you know where your sabbath is, or what to call it, or what it looks like?

A friend of mine recently mentioned a wonderful phrase: "Going dark." As in, unplugged, off the grid, not available, not on email. Not that you have to sit in the dark necessarily (though that may well be a good idea). But that you need to detach, stop the machines from humming--you know, the ones that keep you humming and responsive and productive all year long.

"Going dark" as a summer discipline and treat may seem incongruous--the words conjure a winter time of burrowing and hibernation. Yet I think they are particularly pertinent to the time when many church newsletters have a column or two about the importance of rest, respite, recharging and renewal. The mystics speak of "the dazzling darkness of God" and they are not talking about something depressing, but of mystery, depth, an unknowing that can be exhilarating.

On my last trip home to Virginia from Marble it was particularly rough, especially during the last part of the flight. The winds were suddenly 50 miles an hour, and the plane was shaking. Then, on the approach, it got really bad, the stewardess sounded particularly frantic about the “turbulence” we were entering and the plane was bucking like a bronco. While I have gotten more and more scared of turbulence as I get older, this was the first time I thought, hmmm, this flight may not end so well. It was a small prop plane, and the pilot seemed to be fighting for control.

It was also the first flight where I cried upon landing, and bowed with my hands in front of me the ancient Namaste prayer to the pilot, who stood beaming and astounded at the front of the plane as we filed out. He also looked about 16 years old, but that is a common midlife phenomenon, I find.

I was grateful, relieved, and could move on, somehow, into the week that awaited, and into time with my husband, who I was exceedingly glad to see, shaking though I was. And yes, my fear of turbulence has ratcheted up a few notches.

This blog comes to you the day before Pentecost, the birthday of the church, the time when the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God came into the church and gave it new and surprising life.

In much the same way the Holy Spirit comes to people—something surprising, unexpected, pulling on new parts of ourselves, asking us to trust it even if it manifests in strange ways.

Martin Smith, a former monk in the Episcopal church, in his classic book "Season for the Spirit" has written:

Many people brought up as Christians relegate the mystery of the indwelling Spirit to an attic where they store teachings which common sense dictates to be implausible, 'mystical,' remote from reality. As soon as we allow ourselves to be grasped by the truth of it, the indifference we used to show is unmasked as actual resistance which tries to keep the Spirit at arm's length.

“The path of real life moves from one shelter to another. We are not drifters or homeless, but seekers, pilgrims, itinerants of a hidden impulse. The secret of transformation has to do with knowing when to stay and when to move on.”

I believe paradox is at the heart of the spiritual life. Lose your life to find it, says Jesus, and my own life and that of many folks I know attest to this unwelcome yet exhilarating truth.

One of my favorite writers, Thomas Moore, author of “Care of the Soul” and the new book, “A Life at Work” is particularly artful and provocative in his understanding of the paradox that calls to us.

(Shameless moment of promotion: Thomas Moore will be at Marble on Saturday, May 10 for a wonderful day of conversation on soul.  Information and registration here. You may still be in time to get his new book free with your registration.)

In this ongoing Easter season, the temptation is to keep the concept of resurrection at arm’s length. Whether through associating it with miracles and mystery and Jesus only, or assuming it is an Easter-only event, it is easy to sidestep the demands of both this concept and the Easter season.

I have written in an earlier blog about the basic aspects of “resurrection” and how the word can mean “again standing up”—all the daily aspects of just getting up and showing up.

But there are also those more life-changing, ground-shaking aspects of looking at new life, at change, at resurrection power. Quaker author Parker Palmer has written about what it is like to be “threatened with resurrection”—that deeply ambivalent reaction I certainly have to newness and change.