Descent of the Holy Spirit

A moment from childhood that stuck with me.

A childhood moment popped into my mind the Sunday after Easter. I’m with my parents in downtown Cleveland in the late 1950’s; it’s summer and overcast. I’m nine. A bus is stopped in front of us and everyone has boarded. A few seconds click by, my dad mumbles something, and then a man in a suit comes flying across the sidewalk, the arms of his jacket flapping behind him. He disappears onto the bus. He’s armless. My dad knew of the man, had seen him before, but wasn’t sure if the war or an accident took his limbs.

At my grandma’s house I told my uncle about the sighting. He thought it was a war injury and then explained how the armless man would take off his shoes and socks in a restaurant, pick up a knife and fork with his toes, and go to work on a steak.

Young children intuit the holy spirit and are often immersed in that peace which passeth all understanding. And they recognize courage. I recognized the man’s courage and was in awe of him.

I’ll never know the man’s name, or who lived with him, who loved him, and what acts of kindness occurred daily in his life, or what abuses he suffered. I didn’t have the words at nine, but I knew the man flew up the steps of that bus without an ounce of pity for himself.

I know today, decades later, that my feeble memory is not the only place he resides, of that I’m sure. His name is written in a Book we’ve all heard mentioned. And perhaps, on another summer’s day, he flew up the stairs of an old bus into a new life.

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