Mae Runions

Wings of the Spirit, the Great Blue Heron

St. Andrew’s- Wesley United Church, Vancouver, B.C., 2009

Hanging for Pentecost: Communion Table Frontal.

The great Blue Heron stands 4 feet tall and has a wing span of 6 feet. It is a community loving bird and nests in the legendary large heronry of Stanley Park. It can also be solitary and goes off to fish on it’s own at times. And it is our neighbor. The majesty and mystery of this great bird never ceases to stop me in my tracks. One year after Easter as I was thinking of Pentecost and we had been reading the powerful, amazing post Easter stories of the early church after the Spirit had come, I was thinking of visual symbols, as I do. Somehow the traditional dove wasn’t sufficient. I was looking out over the water from my studio and saw the flying heron – that great flapping something between a dinosaur bird and an elegant eagle.

I had that strange tingling of heart and hands – could we perhaps use the heron as a contextual symbol of the Holy Spirit for Pentecost at St. Andrew’s- Wesley Church? I had a little discussion with the minister Rev Gary as we served up the Seniors’ lunches. And so it was……

Now when I see a distant heron flying over the water, I think, "there’s the Spirit, going about Spirit work…...someone on the North Shore this time!"