Okieinexile's Blog

By Bobby Neal Winters

I would have never thought that having a flute be a part of a band that had an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, and drums would work.  I don’t think it would’ve ever crossed my mind in the first place.  Maybe I’ve heard it before and just forgotten about it.

In any case, it would be like mayonnaise on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: Maybe it would be great, but my mind does a preview of and…no.

But it works.  Not only does it work, it works well. There is probably some musical term for what it brings, but, not knowing anything about that, I will struggle in my own way. It does something to make it live.  To raise it.  

The breath from the flautist breaths life, breaths spirit into the song.

This was done on Pentecost Sunday at the Cathedral of the Paraguayan Anglican Church in Asuncion.

Pentecost is the Sunday, 50 days after Easter, that we mark the coming of the Holy Spirit. On the Day of Pentecost, according to the Book of the Acts of the Apostles: “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

In the Revised Common Lectionary, this is often paired with the story of the Tower of Babel from the Book of Genesis.  The idea being, that the Holy Spirit undoes the division that happened at Babel.

Here in Paraguay, I am attending the Anglican Church because the services are in English.  You can’t get any good from a message if you can’t understand it.  

Today’s service was special beyond just Pentecost.  There was a man who was ordained as a deacon in the Anglican Church.  Because of this, there were a wide range of clergy and laity from other churches where the services are not in English. 

Since I have an Ueber ride to get to the church, I arrived early and took a seat in a chair.  As I was sitting there, I found a friendly hand on my shoulder.  I turned and it was a preacher.  You can always tell an Anglican minister because they wear collars, kind of like a warning label, but I digress.  He shook my hand and was quite friendly.  After he learned I was from Kansas, he mentioned he was a Buffalo Bill’s fan. I remarked that he probably hated the Chiefs.  Preachers don’t lie.  He owned up to it.

Quite a nice guy.

Turns out, he was the Bishop there to ordain the deacon.

Because of the nature of this service, bringing churches from different parts of the country together, I was in for a bit of a surprise: The service was not in English.

No, some of the churches have a mission to Spanish Speakers; some to the Guarani Indians. The needs of these diverse congregants were met in the praise songs.  Sing them a couple of times in Spanish, a couple of times in English, and a couple of times in Guarani.

A good thing was, during the songs, all of the words were projected onto the screen. Praise songs are what they are and as such don’t demand a lot of deep vocabulary anyway.

However, a few verses of a few songs was as far as the English went and the Guarani, for that matter.  The rest was in Spanish.  For the scripture, they projected it onto the screen and it was scripture that I was familiar with.

The sermon was not projected.  

The fellow who gave the sermon was Greg Venables who is the retired Anglican Archbishop of South America. I’ve heard him preach before, and there are none who can out preach him.  Since that time, he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.  He took the pulpit, and his hands were visibly shaking.  I was hopeful that perhaps he would preach in English.

No.

But it somehow didn’t matter. He preached in Spanish, and I understood.  Somehow, through some greater power, I understood.

He talked of his Parkinson’s. That he’d prayed to be cured, and God had answered, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

He was preaching in Spanish, but it was fitting in my head like English.

With triply-long praise songs plus Pentecost plus the ordination the service went two solid hours.  I am never going to give the Catholics grief for Easter vigils ever again.

I was exhausted, but there was a strange energy within me.  I just had to share.

So I am.