contextual pneumatology

Introduction
The safe group of participants who joined with me in the commitments of the course included four others, all of whom were interested in exploring the realm of pneumatology as a group rather than as a unique individualized experience. Thus, from the outside there was a shared sense of expanding the bandwidth of what counts as a story of the Holy Spirit. First, we discussed what the Holy Spirit is—which was important for us to connect on because by defining what we are experiencing we can erase any misconceptions and give clarity to what might otherwise be opaque. As Leonard points out, the Holy Spirit is not a junior member of the Holy Trinity and is not shy about coming to others. We wanted to discuss what we believed the Holy Spirit to be before beginning so that we could ensure that we were united on the same page. What we discovered was that we wanted the Holy Spirit to lead us in a way of life—not just in a type of moment of animation, such as tongue-speaking. That was a significant sign that we were all in agreement with what Love described when he stated that “the Holy Spirit draws believers into a particular way of life that makes it possible for the leading of the Spirit to be discerned in relation to conditions on the ground” (166). The Holy Spirit was leading us to a new way of life—not just to new experiences disconnected from our life as we currently lived it. We had all formed in a group to discover what this new way of life would be—how the Holy Spirit was ready to guide us and lead us to be closer to Christ.
For that reason it is important to describe the members of the group. I will not use their real names but will describe their particular places in life so that it can be seen how they were connecting with the Holy Spirit. First was Jane. She was 36 and the mother of four children under the age of five. She had just lost her husband and was seeking to renew her faith and wanted help in discerning the way forward. Second was Mike. Mike was 28 and new to the faith. He had been an atheist for most of his life but drug addiction and a stint in jail had opened his eyes. He was now out of prison and sober for one year and wanted to build his relationship with God. He believed the Holy Spirit would help him in this endeavor. Then there was Josh. Josh was 24 and the son of a minister and was looking to discern whether he should follow in his father’s footsteps or make his own way in the world doing something else. Then there was Amber. Amber was 42 and was praying for her sister who was suffering from drug addiction. Amber wanted guidance and reassurance that she was doing the right thing in helping her sister by taking her into her home. She wanted to get her sister involved in the group but she was not sure whether this would be too overwhelming for her sister. She wanted guidance. So everyone in the group had a clear idea of where guidance was needed but they were all open to letting the Holy Spirit take them someplace new even if it was not anticipated by them.
Postures and Practices
The first posture that we talked about was this: “The living God, the risen Christ, and the Holy Spirit are active in leading God’s people” (Love 171). Implicit in this posture is the idea that the Holy Spirit is present and ready to lead those who are ready to follow. It suggests that one need only be open to following the spirit and accepting what God gives as evidence of His will for us all. The group agreed that this was so and therefore we agreed to adopt the first posture in our approach to working with the Holy Spirit to discern the way for ourselves through this life. To set the environment for this posture, I suggested that we all make it a habit to include the Holy Spirit in our daily lives, our thoughts and our prayers by getting into the routine of saying a morning, noonday and evening prayer to the Holy Spirit and making tiny prayers throughout the day to invite the Holy Spirit into our hearts. By keeping a constant focus and reflection on the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, leading us in our daily lives—not necessarily in big ways but rather in being open to what comes our way, we can be begin to sense what it is God is calling us to do with our lives. Whether we begin to feel a great empathy one way or another, or we feel motivated to do something, or we are simply given the grace to hang on for the time being and endure the slow grind of daily life, it is up to us to discern what God’s will is and the Holy Spirit is there to lead us.
I reminded the group that, as Love points out, the Holy Spirit is not primarily here to offer us comfort and encouragement. There are those dry periods—the dark nights of the soul (Tolle)—in which we may feel abandoned by the Holy Spirit because we do not sense His comfort, love or warmth. We feel nothing—and yet that is when we must be extra-mindful to stay in the pursuit: these dark nights are tests to see whether we really mean what we say when we pray that the Holy Spirit guide us. These dark nights may seem like we are lost, but they are really moments when we can tune in completely to God and rely wholly on the Holy Spirit, trusting internally that even though we feel completely lost and abandoned the Holy Spirit is there with us and will not permit us to come to harm so long as we live our lives in union with Christ’s commandments (Sheen).
To keep that in mind, I recommended posture #3 as well: “The Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh” (Love 175). This posture supports the idea that the Holy Spirit is not confined in one person or entity but rather can be found among all the people of God. That means we need to look beyond ourselves and our own little group and see the Spirit of God in our community. It is akin to seeing Christ on one’s left, Christ on one’s right—just like in the prayer of “St Patrick’s Breastplate.” For me, I felt that posture #3 leads naturally into posture #4: “The work of God is often initiated among ‘outsiders’” (Love 176). This means that the work of God does not start and stop with us but that God can work through others in order to lead us to where He wants us to be. So we need to be attentive to others, to our neighbors, and not just to ourselves hoping that the Holy Spirit will speak to us internally. It is very often the case that the Holy Spirit speaks to us simply by sending us those we are meant to interact with. As Love notes, “We have all too often comfortably placed ourselves in the category of the ‘wise and the intelligent.’ As a result, we assume that of course the work of God begins with us” (177). My hope is that by adopting this posture our group can adopt a humble perspective so that we can truly be open to being illuminated by the Spirit rather than thinking that we are the instruments by which God will reach others. We are praying here to be reached and to be attentive to God’s plan as it unfolds outside our own comfort zone. That is what we can expect to encounter.
As for practices, I have already stated that I recommended to the group that we engage in the habit of prayer, and this is the very first practice that Love recommends as well. Prayer has to be the bedrock, the cornerstone of this initiative because if one is going to have any relationship with God, one has to communicate with God. How does one have a relationship with another if there is no communication? Prayer is communication. It is the act of putting oneself in the presence of another—in this case of the Holy Spirit, because we are going to be praying especially to the Holy Spirit. Prayer allows us to be mindful of what we are doing so that we can achieve our goal of union with the will of God through the guidance and light of the Holy Spirit.
The second practice I recommended was the same as Love again: localizing our lives and making our lives more united to our local community—i.e., sharing a common life with those around us. This is what Christ did by getting out and getting to know others and Christ was always guided by the Holy Spirit to do the will of the Father. So what we have here is a lesson about not isolating ourselves. When Christ went to the wedding feast at Cana, He did not hide Himself but rather announced His divinity by turning the water into wine at His mother’s request. This kind of interaction is what we should strive to imitate. The group was very responsive to this idea and I anticipate that our group will grow a great deal more confident about being united to the Holy Spirit before long. It is one thing to pray but it is another thing to act, and prayer without action can lead to emptiness. Prayer with action can lead to fullness (Smith). I think that with this practice, God is certainly calling me to get involved more in my local community and get to know those whom God has put around me personally. Even just little things, like stopping to talk to the neighbor, or being pleasant to one at the check-out, or showing some interest and compassion and testifying before others can make all the difference in the world. However, one thing that Love recommends is the practice of sharing meals. I think this is a great idea and I would like our group to share meals with others as a way of getting to know others and spreading the love and living in the Spirit of God. This is what the Holy Spirit is all about.
I also like the idea of sharing possessions. The sharing economy has really taken off: AirBnB, Uber, Lyft, and other business models are based on the idea that people can share their things. They do so to earn a living, but what if we share simply to be more Christian? Did the Samaritan share his money with the injured because he expected some return on investment? No, he did so because he was of the spirit of God. This is the vision we should have and should try to cultivate. I fully expect that if we make ourselves open to sharing what God has given us with others, we will have a fuller sense of the Holy Spirit operating all around us.
Another practice I want to see us engage in is the sharing of stories. We share things—that is fine—but really we need to share stories as well because these are what inspire faith. The sharing of possessions can inspire gratitude. The sharing of our tales can inspire us to see God’s hand working through all things. We need to share our stories too because they can inspire hope, charity, sympathy, commiseration. We need to share our stories because that is how we come to know one another. The group was very open to this idea as well and fully agreed that sharing our stories with one another is really what made them all want to be Christian in the first place. A story shared is like the most personal thing one can do. It really opens the eyes and mind and heart to the reality of the Holy Spirit living in the world.
The Phases of the Journey
We decided to invite our communities into these movements simply by being open about what we were doing and by sharing our stories with others in a respectful manner whenever we discerned that another person was interested in hearing. By sharing stories and by listening to others, we invite our community into our lives and we in turn are invited into the life and community of others. This phase of the journey is what I call the discussion phase. With the group, we discussed first the idea of the Holy Spirit and then we discussed how we could work with the Holy Spirit in the world. What happened was that everyone had their own ideas about how they could work with the Holy Spirit in their world. They had definitive ideas, such as taking concrete steps with a sister or being honest about a certain issue with a friend. But by talking about it and by listening to one another we were able to provide a sense of comfort and encouragement. This brought us to the next phase of the journey—the planning phase.
I wanted us all to have a concrete plan of action so that we could totally prepare ourselves to live in the Holy Spirit. This plan started with prayer and I recommended that we all pray to the Holy Spirit and also that we pray to see the Spirit all around us so that we are constantly walking and thinking and feeling in the spirit—not seeing anything but God everywhere we look. When we are in this mindset we are completely united to the Holy Spirit. It does not have to be an “event” being united to the Holy Spirit. It should be a way, as Love states, and that is what I wanted us all to understand.
That took us to actually living the way, adopting the postures identified above and living the practices discussed here as well. I wanted us to see that we ourselves are no more or less important in God’s eyes than anyone else. We are all God’s children and the Holy Spirit wants us all to come together as one to be with God. That is why I recommended that we be willing to accept the invitations of others to join with them even if they refused our invitations to join with us. Go where you are asked and invited is how I put it to them. If any of them have seen the film Yes Man I reiterated that this was the spirit to have—to say yes to life because by saying yes to life one is saying yes to God and to the Holy Spirit. In the film, the main character avoids life, avoids his neighbors, avoids his friends and lives in a state of depression. Then one day he is invited to a Say Yes seminar and he is touched by the spirit and resolves to go with it. He is challenged and tested because at first he is faced with saying yes to a lot of things he would rather not do and typically would never do—such as giving away all his manner to a homeless person when asked for it. Yet, by committing to the spirit he overcomes these challenges and begins to see them as small things and as he gets really good at saying yes to life he sees all the good and potentially good works he has done and still has to do. He sees that he is bringing so much joy to others and to himself simply be allowing himself to be among others and to say yes to everything that comes his way. If there is one film that I feel that truly captures the spirit that we should go for it is this one.
I felt that this was a really important point to make because it really got to the heart of what we were trying to do. Instead of trying to be God or control things to get them to be of the design or plan we assumed God’s plan to be, I began to feel that the best way to cooperate with the Holy Spirit would be to admit that God knew better than we did and that what we should do is simply say yes to God’s plan by accepting everything put in our path with cheerfulness and a ready and willing desire to be part of that process of life. Through our example of giving and sharing, supporting and acknowledging, we could shape lives and touch hearts even without even making a specific or overt reference to God. Some people are brought to God before they even realize they are in God’s presence, and I began to see this as the reality for all of us. For example, there was Mike, who had struggled with addiction and been in prison, and yet while there he came into contact with one who was very soulful and showed a great deal of affection and thoughtfulness towards Mike. Mike was stunned by him at first because he thought that everyone in prison would feel as low as he did—but this person was not at all about feeling low. He seemed that he was freer than free and his mind and heart were so full of care and consideration that everyone respected him and no one thought ill of him. Mike was impressed that he actually sought this person out in private, the same way Nicodemus did with Our Lord, and he asked him why he was this way and how he managed to be so full of calm and cheer. The man told Mike that he was this way because God had opened his heart and his mind, and that is what set Mike on the path of discovering God and of wanting to be full in the Holy Spirit. Mike first yes to the man and then he said yes to God. Had the man first led with God instead of simply with charity, Mike may never have realized that God was what he needed all along. He may have just shunned the man as another “God-talker”—but what happened was that the man showed God through his actions, and before long Mike found himself seeking more of God and wanting to be in the presence of God more and more.
Evaluation
Everyone in the group felt that this was the best way to look at things and at their place in the community. Even for Josh who was trying to figure out what to do with his life, he felt that by saying yes to life was the best course of action. We all agreed that Josh would eventually figure it out and that things would fall into place for him so long as he just kept on saying yes to life and living in that Spirit of God and accepting what the Holy Spirit sent his way. He wanted to share with us his stories and we listened and we were all edified by what we heard. This was the best part of our group—the sharing of stories because it evoked so much empathy and sympathy and we were all happy to have heard them. The only one who seemed to lack consolation from this practice was Amber: she felt that she could not show the same kind of charity towards her sister that we were describing. She could not say yes to everything because she felt that she would then be used by her sister, who would use her time and faith and support just to go on living a life of substance abuse. She wondered how this could be God’s plan, how she could in good conscious be so accommodating to one whom she knew would just continue to live a life of sin. She wanted to help her sister and save her but she did not want to support her bad habits or become an enabler.
We all struggled to make sense of Amber’s predicament and it was in truth a difficult struggle for all of us. We all wondered how the Holy Spirit guides us in such circumstances: it seems so dark and impossible to know what is the best thing to do—to love the sinner and to see no evil, or to love God and to instruct the sinner and admonish the sinner and do what one believes is best to assist the person in overcoming the sin. When to push, when to pull, when to lead, and when to give—these were the questions that we all struggled to answer: but finally we all agreed that when in doubt, pray—and that was what we recommended to Amber and that is what I recommended that we all do to help us be more united to the Holy Spirit.
Overall, I feel that the whole project has gone very well and that we are each of us getting to know our communities better by simply saying yes to them and joining them in things we never would have thought to be part of before: a sign for a fish fry—we are there. A notice of a community gathering—we are there. An invitation to coach Little League—we are there. Never complaining, never sighing, never expressing impatience, but always acting out of love and integrating ourselves into our communities to show the kind of Christian neighborliness that the Holy Spirit wants us to show.


Works Cited
Leonard, Allen C. Poured Out: The Spirit of God Empowering the Mission of God. ACU
Press, 2018.
Love, Mark. It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us. Digital file.
Sheen, Fulton. Life of Christ. Martino Fine Books, 2016.
Smith, Christian. "Why Christianity works: An emotions-focused phenomenological
account." Sociology of Religion 68, no. 2 (2007): 165-178.
“St Patrick’s Breastplate.”
https://www.ourcatholicprayers.com/st-patricks-breastplate.html
Tolle, Eckhart. “Eckhart on the Dark Night of the Soul.”
https://www.eckharttolle.com/eckhart-on-the-dark-night-of-the-soul/