Vortex of the Spirit

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This new relationship and redistribution are what it looked like as people were pulled into the vortex of the Spirit. It was an intensified giving, an intensified belonging, and an intensified loving. This is what loving action practically looked like in these newly formed and forming communities.  

And so, as the wealth gap is only increasing in our world—because those in power want to make it so—we need a radically new way of belonging to one another. We need people who are not okay with the status quo of ongoing economic injustice, exploitation, and inequity, but who are freed from the tyranny of power, prestige, and possessions into a radical belonging and a radical love.  Drew Jackson


I am struck by two phrases: “vortex of the Spirit” and “radically new way of belonging”. I wonder whether this belonging is configured in that vortex.


Normally frightening and threatening, a vortex is a whirling of water or air, a whirlpool or whirlwind. It has enormous power to suck one into its grasp. It is a pentecostal experience, the intensity of which can create a fear and confusion masking the “giving, belonging and loving”. It feels a little bit like the world today!

I imagine there is an earthly vortex the power of which is fueled by human greed, material wealth, narcissistic displacement of priorities, propaganda. 

And there is the aforementioned “vortex of the Spirit” fueled by love and compassion, generosity and justice, the fruits of that Spirit. 

The visible vortex often shrouds the invisible one, just as fear often hides care and kindness.

Indeed it tries to suck the life out of the Spirit and control its power. 

But the vortex of the Spirit never, never, dies. Its fuel, if you will, is radical love, radical compassion, radical justice. This radical reaction breeds radical hope…together we are more radical, more loving, more compassionate. 

We belong to this vortex of the Spirit no matter what. It is a vortex which liberates instead of imprisoning. It is a vortex of love not hate. 

It is a vortex of cherished belonging. 


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