Carried on the Wind: A Chronicle of Earthy Saints

John R. McConnell was a senior editor with OISE Press at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto.

As its title proclaims, this collection of 26 short stories reflects the workings of the Holy Spirit in the lives of ordinary people who “like falling leaves ... have been carried on the wind of God ... with no awareness of the magnitude of the truth that they bear” (author’s preface).

The stories are arranged, usually in clusters of two or three, under the heading of a particular action of the Spirit (the so-called “fruits” of the Spirit): love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness / kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility (not among St Paul’s list in Galatians 5:22, but surely the basis for the Spirit’s action), self-control / discipline.

David Thomas’s priestly work in the Anglican dioceses of Quebec and Ontario (where he is currently located at Stoney Creek) is reflected in the geographical location of some of the stories. “The Light,” for example, the story of two men caught in a snowstorm on their way to celebrate a Christmas service, takes place in Labrador, and the experience of finding succour in the light shining from the small church building gives resonance to the Christmas reading from the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel with its strong light motif.

The stories display an economy of circumstance and character portrayal that sometimes provides too pat an illustration of the spiritual theme. Contrast “The Priest,” in which the visiting cleric says to the sick man’s wife, “I come to bring him comfort and he touches me with his peace. I go away restored” — beautiful words, but somehow hollow — with “Nancy,” where in two pages are concentrated a life of unusual suffering and a faith that struggles and rebels against the “His will” explanation, but which shines through and overcomes the darkness, and thereby radiates the power of the Spirit. Yet in other stories, notably “Albert,” “Marjorie Lovell,” and “The Advertisement,” this same economy of portrayal describes situations in which the Spirit seeks to free us from our social and personal chains. The characters in these tales bear the stamp of authenticity and remain impressed on the mind.

This collection reflects well the words of St Cyril of Jerusalem on the Spirit who “comes to save, to heal, to teach ... to console, to enlighten the mind, first of the men who receive him, then through the minds of others also.” The book provides evocative reading for the season of Pentecost.