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On the third Sunday of Easter I was in La Jolla, California, for the baptism of a granddaughter. If there is anything better than witnessing and participating in the baptism of a grandchild, I don’t know what it is.

I’m told there are never unpleasant days in this part of the world. April in Chicago testifies that T. S. Eliot was right when he called April “the cruelest month.” Perhaps Eliot had watched a baseball game at Wrigley Field with the temperature at 37 degrees and a 30-knot wind blowing off the lake. There are no days like that in La Jolla.

What happens to a person when the Holy Spirit descends like a tongue of fire? In Acts, those present were filled with the Holy Spirit. We all long for this. We all seek fulfillment. I saw this once when I was conducting a spiritual retreat for members of various 12-step groups. Each person spoke powerfully about how the pain of emptiness in his life had led him down wayward paths. Each had discovered that “you can never get enough of that which will not satisfy.”