December 8th

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Sometimes I wonder if my most common interaction with the Holy Spirit isn't the gentle reminder - like the only I received at approximately 6:28 today, exactly enough time to drive to St. John's for the last mass of the day. This one was more convoluted then just my not untypical "Oh yeah! That!" My roommate met up with me at a friend's house and mentioned that she couldn't even remember what day it was. I immediately returned that I knew exactly what day it was because it's the day after Pearl Harbor day so December 8th which is the Feast of...oh, right! Church!

Also thank you, Mr. Thompson, for suspending our piano lesson that one year to tell me off royally for not knowing that it was Pearl Harbor day and thus ingraining December 7th into my head for all time.

[As a post-writing warning - this entry came out a bit weird. I considered not posting it. You really might consider not reading it.]

So today I wondered - is the Holy Spirit awakening something in us? Unlocking that best self, taking away the ten thousand things that keep us from being who we are - or is it adding something Else, something Other to us? Gifts like Tongues seem to suggest the latter, while Discernment could exist as either and more run-of-the-mill courage and eloquence could be naturally endowed but repressed or unused. I'm not sure what I "want" it to be.

Within us is more inspiring, in an afterschool special sort of way but still, and there's something more Romantic and fairy tale-esque about the other. And maybe both are irreverent comparisons, but I don't mean them that way.

Then again, maybe that's just the watered down version of the Holy Spirit. The description of Pentecost is anything but tame. Ecstatic contact with the divine. Transformation in the presence of God. Becoming a vessel for Him to speak through. The prophets, the saints, the visionaries. Those are the ones who feel the Spirit like that.

Perhaps we all have the little doses, even the minute ones. On retreat. In a particularly powerful prayer session. In sudden moments of clarity and brilliance.

Those tend to scare the pants off of me as often as inspire. Maybe that's good - and it's always a good thing in my life.

But perhaps we've let the idea of the Holy Spirit moving within us become too tame. To become something easy and simple and "just feels good." Shouldn't it always, at least to some degree, feel like going crazy? Feel like losing control? Even losing yourself?

And I feel like now I'm talking about abandon or the ecstatic religions...but there was wind and tongues of fire over every head and then they spilled into the crowded streets and shouted in every language the truth of God in a way that made people listen. That's not a tame experience. And then their entire lives changed and they roamed around the globe doing and speaking wonders. There's nothing comforting about a story like that. It's powerful, and it's good, but it's not comforting.

Perhaps I'm painting the picture too "wild" when what I mean is "powerful." That is what the Holy Spirit undoubtedly is. And the only reason The Spirit doesn't take us over is because God decided long ago that He would ask to be invited in, that our souls were our own property to do with as we pleased and thus He would only touch them upon request. So we give The Spirit permission for small doses - to bless our lives and give us strength and patience and help us love, to comfort us, to inspire us and help us to do good beyond our intentions. But perhaps only the visionaries, only the saints, only the prophets, allow the Holy Spirit to take over, to enter fully. To flow through until we are a part of The Spirit rather than The Spirit being apart of us - or that we are within the Spirit rather than the Holy Spirit within us. Or until it's both, or it's impossible to tell which.

Maybe that's okay. Maybe it's not. Maybe it hasn't been truly done since Pentecost, when the apostles were lonely and broken and had no idea how the world would change - not just them, the entire world.

But I wonder if the reason we see fewer miracles is because we clutch at more of our souls, our minds, our bodies. If we try to keep them solidly in our possession, by protecting them and locking them away rather than using them and owning them, choosing what to do with them.

Maybe it's because we're afraid of going crazy, or of looking crazy, or of suddenly realizing how crazy we've been all this time. Maybe it's because wind and fire are frightening and so is the idea of shouting in a language you don't know. So is the idea of screaming on street corners and realizing that now this is your life.

Maybe we're afraid because the moment you come out of that feeling, the crash back down to earth is brutal. We feel foolish or empty. We feel lonely or ashamed. Maybe we just forgot how it felt to let the Holy Spirit in, to let the Holy Spirit work within us. We forgot how it feels to be ecstatic, because if we remembered we would go mad. Maybe we're afraid to stay there, even in ecstasy, and maybe we're supposed to be because these bodies weren't made for permanent direct contact with the Divine.

Maybe we're just flawed vessels, but I can't help wondering if we have made the Holy Spirit tame with how many feelings we associate with Him or if we have merely arranged for a thousand degrees of communion to seek with the Holy Spirit - to spare us the choice of divine contact and the danger of madness.