The Spirit Moves

Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, is a city of about 40,000 residents located 175 miles south of Tunis, the national capital.  Until this past December, its only claim to fame was as the site of a World War II battle.  Now, it is also famous as the epicenter of the people’s revolt that brought down the government of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January after 23 years in power.

Mohamed Bouazizi

The movement that led to his fall began with an insignificant event in this insignificant place.  A petty government official seized the cart of a street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi.  It had happened before.  He had also had to pay small bribes and suffer a continuing series of petty indignities.  This time, he tried to get his cart back, but he couldn’t even get in the door of the local official who could help him.  Tired of the humiliation, Bouazzi went home and got some fuel oil and matches. He returned to the government office where he had been turned away and set himself on fire.  Bouazzi had been locally popular, known for his generosity and good nature, and his death set off local protests that quickly went national and eventually international.

It is in moments like this that the Holy Spirit breaks to the surface transforming the despair of injustice into a struggle for change.  It was not the Spirit that moved Bouazizi to suicide but, rather, the Spirit was present in the response to his death, working  for justice.  Often, the power of human greed and arrogance successfully holds back the Spirit sometimes for many decades, but the Spirit still moves quietly like a mountain stream finding its way to its source.  And always, always, the Spirit lies in wait for moments when the desire for peace and justice momentarily overwhelms us, and in these "open moments" it inspires us to behave, if only briefly, in ways that God created us to behave.

Undoubtedly, the revolts we see in the Middle East will not all turn out well.  Some, maybe most, will end badly in one way or another.  That does not mean the Spirit is not at work.  If all of this were easy, Christ would never have died on the cross.