The Upper Room

The disciples spent ten days in the upper room.

We forget this. We remember Palm Sunday and Good Friday and Easter and Pentecost, but we forget the ten days between the Ascension and the coming of the Spirit. The doors were closed. The future was unopened. They had been told to wait. They had not been told what they were waiting for.

My last day at Adobe was last week. I know what I'm building. But there's a difference between knowing the direction and inhabiting the motion.

I am in the room. The doors are closed. The Spirit has not yet descended on the new thing in the way the Spirit descends when the new thing is fully alive.

This is not a complaint. It is a location.

In 1994, at an Order of the Arrow vigil, a group of my peers gave me a name: Diligent Writer. I carried that name for thirty years without knowing what to do with it.

This year the seed is sprouting.

Read the full reflection - and see where the writing is going: The Upper Room

This Sunday: Pentecost

The same Spirit who descended on the eleven will descend again.

I'm not preaching this weekend, but the readings are extraordinary - the rush of wind, the tongues of fire, the sudden gift of speech that made strangers understand.

The upper room was not a place of despair. It was a place of attention. The disciples were praying, waiting, keeping the doors closed until the doors were blown open.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Where the Writing Is Going

Two projects I want you to know about:

TwoLamps.org - A weekly short story braiding the lives of two or three saints from different centuries into a single narrative. Saints who never met in life but whose charisms answer one another when imagined together. Thomas Aquinas with Edith Stein the night before the Gestapo came. Vincent of Lérins boarding a train to ask Cardinal Newman what he meant by development of doctrine. Free to read. Fridays at 6 AM Central.

LuxPerpetua.net - A serial novel unfolding in two tracks: present-day mystery and seven centuries of history. A man inherits his grandfather's house in Alton, Illinois, and finds something in the basement that changes everything. The light that was never put out.

These are where the Diligent Writer name is finally finding its soil.

What I'm Reading

The Ten Days: Waiting for Pentecost - Word on Fire On the often-forgotten days between Ascension and Pentecost, and what the disciples were doing in that upper room.

Why Writers Must Learn to Wait - Literary Hub Not Catholic, but resonates: "The waiting is not separate from the work. The waiting is the work."

The Communion of Saints as Literary Premise - America Magazine On writing fiction that takes the saints seriously as living intercessors across time.

What I'm Praying This Week

For the descent of the Spirit - on me, on you, on whatever we're each being called to build.

For the patience to stay in the room until the doors are blown open.

For my sons - Matthew beginning whatever comes after high school, Andrew beginning high school itself.

For all of us in transition.

Come, Holy Spirit. Fill the hearts of your faithful.

Domus Formation

The household formation work continues:

WeAreDomus.com - Start a free trial. Hearth & Altar for families. Eventide & Altar for the second half of life. Iron & Altar for men. Vessel & Altar for women. One reading. Five minutes. Every day.

WeAreDomus.com/Daily - The free daily email. Catholic news for families. No subscription required.

Final Word

"The disciples were not idle in those ten days. They were praying. They were waiting. They were keeping the doors closed until the doors were blown open."

The upper room is not despair. It is attention.

Michael