Neither Left Nor Right — But Deeper

There are seasons in the life of the Spirit when the soul becomes aware that it is standing at the edge of waters too deep for easy language.

I find myself there now.

Not at the place of certainty.
Not at the place of mastery.
Not even at the place of full articulation.

But at the edge of a deepening.

For much of our public discourse—political, theological, cultural, even ecclesial—we are constantly being pulled toward the tyranny of horizontal choices:
left or right,
liberal or conservative,
traditional or progressive,
old or new,
this side or that side.

And yet, as I continue to sit with the strange beauty of Pentecost and the rising river of Ezekiel 47, another possibility has begun to emerge in my spirit.

What if the deepest movement of God is not always toward one side, but toward greater depth?

The prophet in Ezekiel is not first instructed to choose a bank.
He is instructed to go deeper.

Ankle deep.
Knee deep.
Waist deep.
Waters to swim in.
Waters that could not be crossed.

The movement is not merely directional.
It is transformational.

And perhaps that is part of what Pentecost interrupts.

Jerusalem—Jeru-shalom—the city of peace, suddenly becomes anything but peaceful. Fire falls. Languages erupt. Accusations fly. Some mock the gathered believers as drunk. Order fractures beneath the weight of divine overflow.

But perhaps Heaven had to rupture their assumptions before Heaven could reshape their imagination.

For a people expecting escape upward, God came downward.

The Spirit did not remove them from history.
The Spirit invaded history.

And the rupture was necessary.

The old containers could no longer hold what God was pouring out.

I am beginning to wonder if this is part of the great crisis of our age: we have become skilled at choosing sides while remaining spiritually shallow.

We know how to react.
We know how to argue.
We know how to defend.
We know how to condemn.

But depth requires another kind of surrender.

Depth slows us down long enough to listen.
Depth humbles us enough to admit that God may be larger than our categories.
Depth disturbs our certainty while enlarging our compassion.
Depth teaches us to discern the difference between noise and revelation.

Shallow waters make the loudest splashes.
Deep waters carry the greatest force.

And perhaps that is why the river matters.

Rivers do not remain trapped by straight lines.
They curve.
They bend.
They deepen.
They overflow.
They rearrange landscapes.

The holy often works the same way.

We prefer linearity because it makes us feel in control. Yet throughout Scripture, the presence of God repeatedly interrupts rigid arrangements. Moses turns aside at a burning bush. Jacob limps away from a midnight struggle. Isaiah trembles before a holy vision. Pentecost arrives sounding less like order and more like eruption.

The holy unsettles before it sanctifies.

Difference itself is often misunderstood because we fear what interrupts familiarity. But wonder frequently lives at precisely that uneasy threshold where old assumptions collapse and deeper realities begin to emerge.

The volta—the sacred turn.
The caesura—the holy pause.

Those moments are not interruptions of meaning.
They are where meaning deepens.

And so I find myself less interested these days in merely being “right” and more interested in being immersed.

Less interested in defending the shoreline and more willing to enter the river.

Because the deeper waters of God are not calling us toward passivity, neutrality, or indifference. They are calling us toward transformation.

Toward justice deep enough to heal.
Toward holiness deep enough to love.
Toward truth deep enough to confront.
Toward compassion deep enough to carry.
Toward faith deep enough to survive the storm.

The prophet Amos declared that justice should “roll down like waters.”

Ezekiel saw a river flowing from the temple.

And at Pentecost, the Spirit descended like a flood upon frightened people until the world itself began to tremble beneath the possibility that another order was breaking in.

Perhaps the Spirit is still doing that now.

Perhaps the river is still rising.

And perhaps the call of this hour is not simply:
choose a side.

But rather:

Come deeper.