For so many years we thought ourselves self-sufficient. We could do so many things and technology was seen as offering redemption from all kinds of ills. Internet made things happen at an incredible speed. Our lives got faster and faster. When someone sends an email, we are expected to reply within the day or, at the latest, by the next day. Tee shirts told us: “No limits”. Pop songs said “Reach higher”.

Now the Covid-19 has changed all that. It has made us realise that, actually, we cannot do everything; that we are not self-sufficient; that humankind is just a dot. The Psalmist says “Make us know the shortness of life that we may gain wisdom of heart”. That has been a grace - a difficult grace - of the Covid confinement. We see that we are finite, fragile, beautiful human beings, here to love and serve others, to become more and more truly ourselves by growing into the image and likeness of God. There is a ‘roadmap’ for that growth and His name is Jesus. He sends His Spirit to nudge us along the right path, to awaken our deep desires, to keep us from superficiality, to keep our feet from stumbling.

We need that guidance and that inspiration. There are so many things we cannot do “as we should” or as we would like. St Paul says, “When we cannot pray as we should, the Spirit comes to help us in our weaknesses”. In this time of Covid we realise our weakness and limitations. We need the still small voice of the Spirit, respecting us, gently leading us. We need to listen for it in this Pentecost time. We need those tongues of flame to remove cynicism and rekindle excitement in a tired world.

This particular Covid Pentecost is one when we should cry out to the Spirit and ask for help. We ask that He would inspire and energise leaders and politicians, family members and ourselves. We ask that the Spirit will work powerfully in our hearts and minds and souls, bringing about conversion - helping us to see that our world has to change: that going back to “what we had before” will not do any more. We ask for His help to see that the “new normal” has to be different from “the old normal”, to believe that it can be a Kingdom normal, a ‘normal’ where the poor are raised up and the corrupt thrown down. We need that Spirit if the world is to change, if our hearts are to be melted, if we are to take a next step forward into a world that is different, renewed, transformed.