My wife and the Holy Spirit

Chapel of the Holy Spirit, Walsingham, Norfolk

I hardly know where to start! Most churches have celebrated Pentecost and Trinity Sundays in the past few weeks. But it strikes me that the Holy Spirit nevertheless receives something of a raw deal, even though Pentecost is "His" festival, and since the 70s He has appeared much more in Christians' vocabulary.

There was once a widely used and mildly derogatory expression, "nominal Christians", meaning people who called themselves Christians but gave very little evidence of committed faith in practice. (The oft-reported decline in church attendance seems to me to be more a symptom of the increasing demands of real faith on nominal allegiance in a society drifting towards secularism.) I wonder whether today we are witnessing a new phenomenon of "nominal charismatics", ie Christians who talk about the Holy Spirit but who deny His reality and power.

In simple terms nominal charismatics refer to the Spirit as an inanimate "it", or "spirit" with a lower case s, implying something like "influence" or "character". The legacy that Jesus left behind was... his spirit, his influence, his example. The truth, as Jesus makes clear repeatedly, is much more than this, just as a person is much more that a shadow. The Holy Spirit is dynamic, active and above all personal. He is no less personal than God the Father and God the Son. (By the way, I use the masculine pronoun "He" as that's the habit of our Bible translations; but I'm equally at ease with the feminine "She", being equally personal - but never "it". God must be at least and more than personal, but never less.) His coming to the disciples at Pentecost demonstrated His power and interaction with people.

As this beautiful hymn by Irish musicians, Keith and Kristyn Getty, makes clear, the Holy Spirit is part of the mystery who is God: "Holy Spirit, Breath of God" with Kristyn & Keith Getty. Whatever else He is an active agent, not a passive possession. And so Jesus describes Him as a helper, a witness, a counsellor, a strengthener, a guide. I could go on, looking at what is sometimes known as The Acts of the Holy Spirit (Acts) and what Paul says about Him. I could relate how He impacted, unlooked for, my life. But I want to finish with what I recently found a helpful picture.

It starts, inappropriately, with my regular expeditions to the toilet. I am very unsteady on my feet and use a rollator (a wheeled zimmer). Getting into our toilet is a tricky operation, leaving my rollator outside and transferring precariously to grab-rails and trying awkwardly to turn round. Often I find hands steadying my waist at the point of greatest danger. Jane has glided up silently and unasked, and saves me from disaster. Occasionally in dire straits I shout out and there she is - panic over! Then I reflect how many details she has already thought of - everything is prepared, in position as I need it.

And wider than that, actually I depend on her for my survival from waking to going to sleep. She's there with me through my tough times - helping and encouraging. She enables the highlights of my life! She's my constant companion - and she does not seem to mind. In fact she likes to do it. Which is why I'm confident that she will, as she said well nigh 40 years ago, have and hold me until death parts us.

Of course I can be bolshy. I can refuse her help. I sometimes won't ask for her help; and in that case she doesn't force herself on me. I can and have been ungrateful and ungracious. I sometimes grimace when she stretches my muscles to keep me as mobile as possible, even though I know it's for my good. In a literal way through her I'm still alive and move and have my being. Mostly I am quite aware of how much I owe her and am full of gratitude.

It strikes me that there are a lot of parallels between the way Jane relates to me and the Holy Spirit's relationship with the believer. It is a personal relationship. There is a dynamic about it. I frequently grieve Him. He often surprises and delights me. One difference is that He proposed to me! Another is on His part, although He relates to me personally, it's not exclusive. The Holy Spirit - much as I love my wife - is infinitely greater in his scope. His activity is not restricted to caring for one person, or even one group of people.

As the great Jesuit poet Hopkins put it:
"There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."

He has an infinite individual love, because He is God. And I'm grateful.

Paradise....

There was morning worship today on Radio 4 from the Greenbelt Festival. I've never been there, but have listened to talks given there, in particular by John O'Donohue who died four years ago. Greenbelt, from what I gather, combines strands of Celtic Christianity and social engagement. It's altogether quieter than something like New Wine! However, the message of this morning's act of worship was pretty hard core.

"loving company"

It seemed to be that Paradise, to which humans aspire and which lies out of reach in this life, is not to be found in escaping into the beauty of creation (the garden) but in entering into relationship with God and with others (the heavenly city). So Jesus says to the dying thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." This rang true with my experience of the holiday from which I've just returned - see my "Dancing Donkey" blog. What made it special wasn't the beautiful surroundings, though we were in the Brecon Beacons; it was the loving company I was with.

The picture of Paradise in Revelation 21 - which I have found impossible to read aloud without aching tears for some years - is of the most intimate of human relationships, husband and wife. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.'" That's how deep a relationship the eternal God longs to have with the human beings He made, if only they'd say Yes to His proposal of love! Incredible, but true. Relation, not creation, lies at the heart of Paradise.

The Greenbelt service included this thoughtful prayer:
"God of all, we are grateful that Paradise is not lost, 
in spite of us, our sin against You, each other and our wilful neglect of the world and the resources entrusted to us. 
Indeed we realise that in Your great love You secure the promise of Paradise because of us. 
Wherever deep and true relationship exists between people and with God, Paradise is not lost. 
So, Lord, whenever we are blinded by the pain and turmoil of this broken world 
and lose sight of the harmony of Paradise that was, can now be and is yet to come, 
remind us once again of the cross of Jesus and of the lengths to which You have gone 
to manifest both the power and possibility of Paradise."

At New Wine an inspiring Salvation Army officer, Danielle Strickland, mentioned a hymn written by William Booth which I'd never heard before. However, I got the point. It's about the power and possibility of Paradise. It's a similar thought to Frederick Faber's "we make His love too narrow / with false limits of our own". Why did God go to such lengths? 
"O boundless salvation! deep ocean of love,
O fullness of mercy, Christ brought from above,
The whole world redeeming, so rich and so free,
Now flowing for all men, come, roll over me!" (If, like me, you didn't know it, you can learn it here on YouTube!) 

O boundless salvation! deep ocean of love: yes!

The lifestyle of lovers

Here's something else that struck me from this year's New Wine. I think this came from Alan Scott.

"Ask questions in His presence. Asking questions is the lifestyle of lovers."

It is after all the nature of love to ask questions - that's how lovers get to know each other. It's all right for us to ask God questions. Ask Him questions not about our brokenness but about His love. I think he's right, that asking each other questions is natural in a healthy relationship. Isn't it natural for us to ask, "Lord, I don't understand how this comes out of your love. Can you tell me?" There can be a difference in the context of our questions, of course. You can ask really not wanting the answer, like Pilate's "What is truth?"or even not believing that God is real. Or you can ask sincerely, because you don't understand how your experience and God's love match up, like "My God, why have you abandoned me?" That's a lover's question.

That rings true, doesn't it? Asking questions of God is the stuff of a true relationship with Him. My friend, Nicky, calls God "Daddy". He is the perfect Father. Who more appropriate to bring our concerns to? Who more natural to seek explanations from? Who better to trust?

Through the... narrow door

In Closer to God (that's the Bible reading notes than Jane and I use) yesterday there was particular good note, I thought, on Luke 13.18-30, with the heading "You have to choose". If you, like me, are too lazy to look up passages when they're mentioned, here it is!
'Jesus said therefore, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches."
'And again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened."
'He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them, "Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' then he will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.' Then you will begin to say,'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.' But he will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!' In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last."'
Richard England commented:
"You know that awkward moment in a blossoming relationship where the girl (it's usually the girl) thinks to herself, 'Why won't he just ask me out?' Perhaps you've seen it among your friends or it's happened to you. What it indicates is that in a romantic relationship, it's not enough to hang out and say nice things to each other; you have to make a choice for a relationship to go forward.


"Perhaps one of the most deeply held errors about God is that, in the end, he will let everyone in. Today's reading shows us how mistaken that is. While God's kingdom will grow until it reaches every part of the planet, we still have to choose to enter it. Even those who could say to Jesus, 'Hey, we hung out with you, eating and drinking' - if they don't choose to follow him - will in the end hear him say, 'I don't know you.' We want to believe that being a good person is enough, but we're like the boy who hangs around the girl without realising that you have to make a deliberate choice. God desires a relationship, and a genuine relationship  cannot be coerced. It has to be chosen.


"This is a painful truth for many of us, but we cannot let ourselves be drawn into the mire of well-intentioned platitudes that claim 'it'll all work out'. Jesus transcends that. Love must be chosen."

That, he concludes, must make us pray for those we love who haven't chosen that Love. I think I'd add that that choice may be very tentative at first like fingers linking rather than hands firmly interlocked. The extraordinary thing about God is that he does not reject even the most hesitant approach, the tiniest seed of faith.

I quoted in full one of my favourite poems in I Choose Everything, which is George Herbert's Love, which begins: 
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
        Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
        From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
        If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";

         Love said, "You shall be he."...