The Holy Spirit

21Sep
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight.
-Psalm 19:14


It’s 5:24 a.m. It will be another forty minutes before the sky will hold enough light for me to discern the outline of the dogwood and giant rhododendron woods that surround the timber porch where I am sitting. An hour-old fire in the fireplace is barely holding back the chill morning air. Everything is big, old, and dark, and a little wild. Any vulnerability I might feel is comforted by the fact that I come here every year in late September for a retreat with eight men and our spiritual guide, The Reverend Diane McPhail. Every morning I rise before the others to sit quietly in this safe wildness to converse quietly with the darkness. I choose this silence because it is fecund with the call to enter into honest, heart-to-heart exchange with the Holy Spirit.    

How convenient, since the guiding topic of our retreat this year is “The Trinity.” The whole Trinity. All of it. There’s the Father, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent; eternal creator and protector of all. There’s Jesus, the son, the anointed one; who chose to live and die among us to consummate a new covenant that would establish the Kingdom here among us. Historical, yet omnipresent. Then there’s the Holy Spirit, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. The Holy Spirit; that which was left behind after the covenant was consummated. The Holy Spirit, a gift, left for us to touch as a means to converse with God. It’s like glitter and party favors, left behind after a child’s birthday party. You cannot get enough glitter…No! Sorry, not that Father, not exactly that Son, and most especially, not that Holy Spirit.


This is the part where, together you and I grope in the slightly wild darkness to seek a better understanding of the Holy Spirit. That is, we seek a closer relationship with God through the Holy Spirit; and this is what we are to be up to, you and I.

If we are to be about building our relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, I can find myself feeling orphaned because it seems that the Holy Spirit has gone silent on us? 


Did we do something to be undeserving of the ear and the voice of God? No! Be clear about this: there is nothing transactional about God’s love for us. It is complete, abundant, and totally undeserved. That’s the point I’m coming upon. 


So it seems we are left to believe that the silence we perceive from God is chosen by God as that place where the Holy Spirit, as our advocate and mediator, invites us to meet; bringing with us our own silence. We are asked to set aside the soft, distraction of spoken petition. The invitation is to fulfill Gods eternal yearning for us, to simply Be together.. Only then can we know the mystery and wonder of connection with the divine. Together, in shared silence, we converse with the Holy Spirit in the language of the heart. 


This is what Fr. Anthony DeMello S.J. meant when he said, “If you can hear yourself praying; it’s not prayer.This morning it is raining softly and I hear the tiny drops falling through the trees in the darkness. Tiny droplets hitting the maple leaves high above roll down from leaf-to leaf, gaining in size and pitch and meter until they land as boisterous pats of rainwater on the stiff rhododendron leaves. In the distance I see with my ears the hhhhhhh sound wind makes in pine trees. I hear the voice of the Holy Spirit asking, “Marsden, tell me; what is important to you? Now, my beloved, what do you want me to do for you?” Shhhh, do you hear it too? “Good morning, my beloved, what do you want me to do for you…?”


Musical Reflection - Holy Darkness, Dan Schutte


Holy Spirit, please be patient with my inclination to give you my to do lists. Incline my heart to speak into the sacred silence you provide for our dance of mystery and joy. Show me the path to wonder and simplicity. Amen.

Holy SpiritSpiritual PracticeMeditation

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