As in nature, the seeds of faith in us lay dormant and then spring to life over and again in the same way. That’s God’s way.

THE FOURTH OF JULY is my favorite holiday. I like it even more than Christmas. In fact so does my whole family. It’s the biggest celebration we throw. No matter where my siblings and I might be living, we always make it home for the Fourth

The apostles Peter and Paul suffered their share of persecution for their faith. What is interesting was their reaction: They didn’t retaliate—Peter became a rock rather than tossing one back. They simply had faith, endured, trusted in God—and kept on building the church.

It’s exciting to do something really hard with a bunch of other people who are trying to do the same thing. And there are even more people on the sidelines cheering you on. It’s an incredible feeling of camaraderie and community.

“Her son’s killer stood on a chair on the gallows, his hands shackled, the noose around his neck,” reported Amir Vahdat and Adam Schreck in a story for the Associated Press. “Hundreds crowded outside the jailhouse in the northern Iranian town of Royan to see whether the mother would exercise her right to kick the chair out from under the condemned to let him hang.”

As the long seasons of Lent and Easter come to a close, we teeter on the border of “Ordinary Time,” witnesses to the Spirit before the world’s darkness. Keep the flame alive! Tend the fire: Use your gifts, ordinary as they may seem.

YOU MAY have seen the photo taken earlier this year when the conflict in Ukraine was still mostly about the overthrow of the then-president and before it escalated into a struggle about Ukrainian sovereignty, the European Union, international politics, and the all the rest.

What happens today isn’t as important as the dramatic coming of the Holy Spirit in fiery tongues next week. The cast is introduced. They are left. It’s a cliff-hanger. The scene fades, leaving them praying. Just what will happen?

WHEN I WAS A CHILD, the Holy Spirit was the one person of the Trinity I didn’t quite get. Though it was a little tough to wrap my head around the idea that God could be three distinct persons at once, I could of course understand the notion of God the Father and God the Son.

I HAVE A FEELING that something similar to this has happened to a lot of people. A while back when I was in the hospital, the nurse brought me in a wheelchair up to a mirror so that I could shave. The image in it looking back at me, face drawn and gray, hair uncombed, eyes sunk deep in their sockets, was not me. It was my father who had died many years ago.