Spirited Away

Reflect on what you know already about the way Luke emphasizes the role of the Spirit of God in the lives of the early followers of the Risen Jesus. How does this compare with your own attitude to the Spirit, and the attitude of the local church community to which you belong?

Luke emphasises the presence and action of God’s Holy Spirit in the community of Jesus’ disciples as the inspiration and power behind all of the disciples’ progress in their Christian life: which includes their ability to live in community, and their selfless service/ministry to the world.

My attitude to the Spirit has changed over the years: when I was younger I knew very little about the Spirit and was not attuned to the work of the Spirit in myself or the world around me. When I attended the Alpha Course in 2000 that changed: the “Holy Spirit Weekend” is a significant part of the course and it gave me an opportunity to learn about the Holy Spirit, and to experience the power of the Holy Spirit through prayer, and subsequently to develop an increasing awareness of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in my life, in the Church, and in the world. As a result, I experienced enormous growth in my prayer life and in my relationships with other people. My personal experience of the Holy Spirit at work in my life was the impetus behind my getting more involved in ministry in my parish, and in taking a stand against participating in things that I believed were morally wrong in my work environment (in the advertising industry), and then going on to work full time for the local Church as a ministries co-ordinator (from 2004-2007). For me, having a more conscious awareness of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit became extremely important, and I sought out companionship with others in my parish who could say the same thing.

Although I had encountered some resistance to “charismatic theology” in my parish (where anyone holding such theology was referred to as the “lunatic fringe” by the more traditional set), it was when I went to work for the Church that I began to experience strong resistance from particular individuals to including anything remotely unstructured, unplanned or intuitive in our attempts to “create religious experience” for participants at our various workshops. At first I was shocked and confused by this: why on Earth would anyone not be excited about leaving room for the power of the Holy Spirit to get to work in individuals, and in the Church? And how on Earth would one propose to create religious experience without including the Holy Spirit? At which point I discovered that “this Holy Spirit business” is extremely controversial: many “solid” Catholics are completely dismissive of anything that looks even remotely “charismatic”. I found this to be very odd, in the face of the many references to the Holy Spirit in the Church’s official documents and teachings.

In time, I began to realise that the resistance I was encountering was not resistance to the Holy Spirit as such, but fear of abuse that might happen in the name of being open to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Who gets to decide what is or isn’t “the leading of the Spirit” and how much freedom do others have to resist or reject instruction from those who claim to speak to them in God’s name? In my time at my ministries job I also heard many sad tales of things that have gone horribly wrong when people have disclaimed responsibility for their choices: instead of participating in decision making, some vulnerable people at times depend on and expect other “prophetic” people to tell them what to do with their lives. A recipe for disaster indeed, if the “prophets” are the least bit megalomaniac and don’t empower people to listen to God’s voice for themselves! Discernment of spirits and discernment of God’s will are extremely difficult grey areas, and there seems to be a strong tendency in parts of the Church to avoid the entire discussion rather than step into the quagmire.

The parish to which I currently belong is a very traditional parish apart from two sweet ladies who sit near the front, on either side of the aisle: one raises her hands and the other sways along to the Sunday hymns, to the chagrin of almost everybody else in the church, for whom these two old ladies are an amusing charismatic oddity. I silently salute them: you GO, girls! But I stand quietly by, afraid of being found out and labelled a lunatic, and losing all credibility – and along with my credibility, my ability to work quietly towards encouraging people to be ever more open to God’s amazing love for them, and to recognise God’s power at work in their lives. Just as long as I never use the word “prophesy” to describe what I’m doing, everything should be alright!