I can´t describe the Holy Spirit.
(For the premise of this thread, I´ve presumed from the viewpoint
that the third Person of the Godhead does indwell Believers. If this is not your cosmology...no problem...think of this as
a NatGeograph of a place you wouldn´t want to go to, would be ashamed to have to admit gone visiting to, and yet (like the
scene of an accident you can´t turn away from) want the vicarious experience of ´seeing´ what the ´Christians´ are talking
about.) (And apologies for the length, but I couldn´t think of a way of condensing qualifiers and introductions to help illustrate
where I´m going with this; and not chop off too many examples, as there are infinite observations (and I´ll leave that for
others to add onto), with only so much room; and a love of brevity when I read too. (LOL, if autoimmune can pull it off, maybe
I can too.)
But I´d like to talk about the Holy Spirit. Illustrated from an oblique kind of perspective.
The perspective of the ´self´ that stands back and observes what
the outer ´self´ or ´face´ is doing.
(And if QH can tread this type of ground, I´ll give it a whirl.)
But instead of observing the outer ´self´, I would like to turn
that observation internally and try to describe what I see.
Hoping that from an experiential, first-person description,
that you may see a piece of what has been described before from others, in quite different terms and observation perspectives.
[I don´t want to sidetrack into the cosmology or theology or any
other ´ology´; and have a debate about His existence, or what He consists of, or what His Nature is. Perhaps for another thread.
(I can smell a potential fist-fight a mile away...and that´s, again, for another time and place...)]
Tell you all up front, this is not going to work too well (from
my mudman viewpoint only), because I don´t quite have the conceptual tools yet (still learning)(the verbal painting and vocabulary
and terminology is difficult enough); and the translating of eternal into finite leaves voids that can´t be filled with three
dimensional words. (On many levels.) Hoping someone else can pick up and run with this.
(Too easily being distracted in
exploring, wandering off and not remembering to come back with concise examples.)
But in being fools for Christ... ---
Here goes a foolish attempt to show you, at least partially, what I see of Him, in me. (In me -- only because it´s the most
approachable, intimate, first-hand observation point, I can (mostly) rely on.)
Not as in seeing the effects, or fruit, or outward examples in action
of Him working -- that´s another thread.
Not as in seeing Him as internal spiritual ´Clean Sweep´ program, or ´Backup
and Restore´, or as Comforter, or the One who holds back evil, or the Indwelling in the Church. -- another thread.
This
is to see Him, as you would, if you also were filled with this Spirit in the way most of the Calling Ones are. And if you
were looking within yourself for evidence or footprints of where He went and where you´re going with Him, and staying tuned
to what flavor His promptings were.
This is a description of Indwelling from a mortal, mental paintbrush only.
(The
spiritual description -- I feel you´ll only get, when you actually Are... And others can attempt to paint that for you, much
better than I; so I´d rather not...at least not until I´ve grown more.)
This is for demonstration purposes only. Not to be taken internally
without proper supervision...
This is the thing about the Spirit: it is indescribable.
There
are no words that can convey the flavor --( it´s like you grow a seventh sense) -- of your sense of focus...
...At times it feels like a Pull; I imagine perhaps what an albatross
or swallow or pigeon might feel in their sense of direction.
Somewhat a magnetic feeling, like you get when trying to
push two strong magnets together. That slippery, heavy-yet-light feeling in your hands; that feeling in my mind and in my
gut (the center of my Chi.); I can only call a ´Pulling´, or even a sudden tug, that mostly grabs my attention and aims my
concentration. And sometimes the Pulling is one where I suddenly change direction and get a strong intuitive hunch to temporarily
abandon what I was doing, and go, or see, or do something different. That always turned out to be to the edification of someone,
without fail.
And sometimes, not often (not often enough...), an intense feeling
of listening -- not with ears, but with a strange but familiar feeling that I´m a large clay jug being filled. Not as ears
being filled with words of sounds, but as a vessel being poured into, with ´understanding´ filling me up like a liquid. (This
is a part where inadequate words fail me totally...I can read my own words and see they are not conveying what I´m painting;
and if I am not seeing it from them, then it´d have to be communication from the Holy Spirit that would make them seeable
to you.)
....ah....God moves in ways we haven´t invented concepts for yet......
At other times, like the Laurie Anderson song, it´s like the fictional
creatures on another world, with telescopes for eyes...
My sense of internal vision spreads out in a panoramic 360 degree
globe, with a ´dimple´ that dips funnel-like, when I focus in a ´time´ direction (except that it feels like a oil-painting
layering to time). And although it doesn´t feel like distance or direction, it feels ´tunnelly´. Dimming in intensity and
contrast is the only indication of movement in perspective.
...But it´s only certain things that trigger that particular
vision sense; and that´s when in contemplation of God. It´s like you´re given a different sense, an eighth sense, that can
perceive through an eternal-flow environment, filtered through a linear sense, to translate concepts as if they had a dimensional
shape that described duration. But since these are concepts and not objects, it´s actually clearer than it sounds. You can
even be in two or more places at once.
The problem is, I have to describe in terms that blends the senses you do know...and
it´s inadequate...
...like trying to fully describe what happened on Owsley...not just visually...but mentally.....
The
three and four (and who knows how many) dimensions that words connect outward into...the concepts that nestle next to words,
and all over them, like little pods; the pods´ different ´colors´ making a tapestry or mosaic, shades of meanings, fractal
like, and yet, a coherent picture from each one. And somehow stacked, or clustered, in word groups, the connections themselves
become entities that further add to the overall picture...some dimming into time...some blending into other relms...the tangle
that looks solid and smokelike at the same time. The microcosmic trading back and forth with the macro. And everything in
constant swirling, recombining, motion. Echoes and ripples; archetypes and memes swimming and expanding/contracting and morphing;
solid Truths towering like enormous concrete pillars that bridges rest upon; Words of Truth like swords of light racing down
strands of concepts.
But tracking a concept, for example, how and why God prunes His creation; immediately flows back
in time to the beginnings and at the same time flashes forward to the Return; while marching through all the nodes and nexus
points between; not static, but a Living thing...the concept of Pruning dipping into and permeating other concepts...grafting
on and reflecting the concept of Sacrifice...and connected intimately with Training for fruitfulness.
The words in the
Bible, not being frozen speech symbols, show themselves as the visible skins of mighty beings of Meaning. Whole families of
meaning telling their stories.
And at the very same time, it all coalescing into one sharp point of Truth.
Most of the time, it feels like my heart has become softened, or
some things make it feel more tender, more reactive, more sensitive...stories of sacrifice, of love and devotion, of virtue,
shake my insides like ripples of emotion; identifying the pleasure of the Creator entwined in those acts. It´s like I get
to see a glimpse of His face, or one aspect of it, of when we ´get it right´, and His reaction. The intensity is the same,
whether it´s me doing the action, or hearing about someone else doing....
(The feeling when I sense a "...well done, My
good and faithful servant...", nearly washes me away.)
Some things instantly attract me, and others automatically repel
me...and when examined...they are laid out, spread out into avenues of extrapolation and implication. And each thing, picked
out like a point in a tapestry, with clear branchings -- goes either into light and clarity, or into darkness and fuzzy chaos.
And it´s like there´s a clear signpost, looking like a hand, inviting me to take it, at every junction.
...and there is no ´point´...it´s an artifically frozen moment of
observation of an ongoing flow...the ´point´ hasn´t been reached yet...that point will be the culmination of history...
lou -- there wouldn´t be enough room for all the descriptors and
qualifiers that would need to be inserted...of course it´s not linear...nothing eternal would be...the closest I can come
to physically describing is the feel of pull when you stand upon a precipice, and yet, the pull isn´t a physical one...and
even the cliff illustration isn´t a good one, because that has a direction of down...but isolate the ´feeling´ of a pull,
that has no origin except you feel it in yourself...
And I did speak incompletely about edification...It always leads
to the edification of God, and the fortifying and building up of either me, or another, or both of us. Unlike the sudden impulse
to sin, which always feels hollow afterwards, and always involves pain, loss, and more sin to follow.
This is almost too personal...but since we all starting going
there...
We were offered opportunities like that three times...
First
time, alarm bells rang right away...it was a world on the plate deal...a Ghram-like tour franchise...We walked away like we
were being offered a poisoned meal...like being seduced into some multinational corporate religion...
The second time...the
pastor abdicated right in front of me, turning the church over to me, the congregation in agreement...shocked me so badly,
I was left absolutely speechless...how could they be so willing to let someone do their thinking for them?...I refused on
the spot and I left as fast as I could...
The third time was with a church that wanted to graft me into their church community...but
after being in their board meeting (and being told ´well spiritual values are good in their place -- but this is business...´),
and seeing how they handled a true spiritual crisis (when I came in for help with a possession victim) by fleeing in terror...I
turned my back in disgust...
Only loosely affiliated with a local church, who are aware of my loner mentality, and my
internet rants...but I remain in extreme far orbit around them...
I can only credit God that I didn´t fall into any one of those traps...by
logic and surface evidence, each looked like legitimate paths to God...without the Sight given by the Holy Spirit...
...after all...I had been told that winning souls was the be-all
and end-all of the church´s buisness...which didn´t sit well with my suspicion that anything that just existed to perpetuate
itself, was just begging the question of why it existed...
All lot of folks jockeying for position...the offers extrapolated
into the cliché ´you can be a star´, one way or another...
I thank Him I was given the sight to see...I have the feeling
that if I had gone along with any of those scenarios, I would have been sublimated into that PTL and 700, etc. and lulled
into deadly spiritual sleep...
maybe not, but they would have been long regretful detours...
auto...
Risk taking...yes and no....a risk in revealing
self is only risking ego...no one (yeah, a pun) knows who I am...(well, yeah, TPTB, but I´m sure I´ve been on their red list
for awhile already...and the way I mention something at home and see it discussed on television the next day -- I´d be sweeping
the house for bugs if I was truly paranoid....). If I make a fool of myself, they´ll be no line of people outside the house
in the morning laughing and pointing and hooting....
There is risk in being misunderstood, or misrepresenting the things
of God...but I´m assuming you all know this is only my opinion, my interpretation, and my way of seeing...it´s just my story...if
it resonates with you, or intrigues you, or satisfies your curosity...then maybe I have connected with some Truth...(of course
´I´ think it´s true, or I wouldn´t post about it -- but no matter how certain I am in my beliefs -- I am in no position to
take the responsibility of transmitting ultimate Truth uncontaminated by any errors, guaranteed, and then actually be transmitting
gibberish that imperils spiritual understanding...)
We is my wife and I.
The offer was to be on a private jet to London that afternoon; abandon
all we had, anything we wanted would be immediately be replaced, we´d lack for nothing...Plans and agendas being tossed around
-- I could farsee a whirlwind of activities where I wouldn´t be able, as just myself, to stop and think -- starting right
then I could feel it beginning to build -- and knew the next step in acquiescence would sweep me away...It was the very glitter
of the offer that scared us -- like, this CAN´T be right!....it was almost a cliché in how it was offered, like an exaggerated
movie script, (like someone overplayed their hand...we were fairly new believers, this was supposed to sweep us up with it
and away...)
...and the real PTB in the world (the Lord of this world) has made me pay for that refusal ever since...
(...broke? I ain´t broke -- but I´m bent awful bad...)
More mature now...I might have stayed and been a stern taskmaker...made
it so that thinking for themselves would be preferable over having me pull it out of them, relentless question after relentless
question...(kind of like a Fulton J. Sheen).
I came from the same background; but we were dragged through situations
-- at times a witness to the angelic, and other´s to the demonic...without a doubt in my mind...concrete manifestations of
either sides´ workings...I think I´ve posted before, sketchy details of the one major demon possession we had to handle...
And ´soul-winning´ was something new to me also...like you say,
if it was done out of a sense like rescuing a drowning child -- a good thing...but if as some sort of cosmic tally-sheet,
to get brownie points -- a sad tragic misuse of salvation...
And I think the notion of love of God should be divorced
from the organization of Man.....If it´s a universal thing -- well and good...if it becomes a social thing -- that´s alright....but
when it becomes a corporate machine intent on swallowing everything just so it won´t have any opposition -- that´s as bad
as the foxhole mentality that has the Church cowering down in their buildings; smug with their ´god-loves-me-best-look-at-my-gold-Cadillac-prosperity-message´,
let the heathens burn they deserve it..."piss in the well - my canteen´s full"...then it´s evil, more evil than just worldly
evil, because it´s mixed with a message that should know better...
And I´d be lying if I told you I really didn´t care what people
think of what I post...my ego cares a great deal...In my better or higher self, I let go, and let it do whatever work it can
do...but my ego cares, like it´s my child, to shepard and protect...
Like I posted on other threads, (because I do know
better -- but still fall into it if I don´t keep reminding myself) -- you must let go -- when your ideas get bashed, it´s
too easy to equate that it´s yourself that´s being bashed.....
´Take up your cross´ is in the continuing tense...it´s
for once, and then for always...daily picking up your cross is daily dying to self...You count yourself dead to self and the
world, and yet only alive in God to do His will...
One of the deadliest traps is that whisper that you can be a star....
And the whisper of doubt, that you missed the boat, you frittered
away your time, you were AWOL, you weren´t listening when you should have....is a variation on the old theme that played when
you first became a Believer...´what if the gospel was fiction´ ´what if God doesn´t really exist´ ´what if this is all just
in my head´...
You are where God would have you be, unless you´re in outright rebellion...
And like you say...it´s
been years since we´ve ´done anything´ other than a handful of conversations...but you never know what the silent testimony
of remaining grounded and unmoved over time, is saying to an observer...
...very pleased to be allied with you...
Anon -- well, maybe that´s the very reason we´re here...
...I
do have my interests and passions, hobbies and curiosities...perhaps I share more of one than another...but I´m not singular-dimensional
-- life does not consist of constant preaching...(unless you count ´how´ you live your life as a form of preaching)...but
you know what I mean...
I´m still just a recovering sinner...I still sin...and I´m not in heaven yet...the things around
me still hold my interest...it´s just their priorities have changed...
And you seen it right Natch...this wasn´t meant to be a ´Christian´
thread in the sense we´re used to using it...only that the subject matter and point of view is...but the construct is one
of merely human...this is how a human feels (when connected), this is what a human thinks (when connected), this is what a
human struggles with...you get the idea....
We´re all human, and there are bound to be things that are so universal that
Adam, or Enoch, or Herod, or Jesus, or anyone, you or I, could recognize and identify with...
To draw those things out
will at least get us on the same field....
To describe the ´compass´ aspects is going to be inadequate...but
along with the ´pull´, is a type of ´flavoring´ -- where one action has more ´fullness´ or ´sweetness´ than another. Once
again I´m trying to transpose other senses to fill in on what in essence is a ´sense of godliness´; a feel for what would
be the will of God, given two avenues of direction, and having to choose between them...
When reading of God-things, there´s
a feeling of surroundings ´lighting up´, or like someone turned the brilliance up on a photograph...objects even on the periphery
of my attention are in crisp focus...
The taste of God-things (that is, subjects about God, virtue, adversity, cosmology,
theology, etc.) is addictive. You seek it like a homing pigeon...you turn over every subject, looking for the god-taste, examining
each facet -- like a miner turning a chunk of quartz around and around, peering into it for that vein of gold...Seeking becomes
a sense of fullness, like after a good meal, when the aspect of how God would look at what you are examining occurs to you.....How
it would appear through His eyes...(I´m not claiming how it would look completely from His viewpoint...just a tiny little
aperture from the Eternal perspective.) Things found of Him have such a satisfying, ´completeness´ to them.
In comparison,
some philosophies ´taste´ tinny, or metallicly flat; some feel like a puff pastry made only with egg-whites; some concepts
taste ´oily´ or slimey...some are spiky like Florida sand-spurs...some are like yawning pits...
But none are lit up or
illuminated like the things of God...
Having these senses is not what I had expected following God to
be...(don´t mistake me, this is only the smallest fraction of what it´s like; and ONLY from the ´how-does-it-feel-from-a-merely-human
aspect).
An example of expectations: As a young person, I would fantasize
the future as being like the ´Jetsons´ sort of...but now that I´m here in that future: and there´s this buzzer going off,
and this timer beeping, and that device doing its noise..."help me human, reset me human, put me upright human, answer me
human, fix me human..." on and on -- I despise it, the world is now filled with beeping, needy robots; constantly prompting
me for their attention -- I feel deeper enslaved by the ´labor saving´ robots...
So what were my expectations of being
led by God? -- cattle-prod like electric shock if I looked at cleavage? And heroin-like cotton-candy bliss if I stayed on
my knees all day? A list I had to check constantly -- is this approved or unapproved -- leads to life/leads to death?...
Little did I know what true yearning was like...or true rest...
...If I died right now (well, I´d hope someone would come along
and press the post button), I´d be quite okay with it.....Yes, I´d have regrets about what I´d have to leave behind...my family...people
I´m close to...things unfinished...but in a deep internal sense, I´d be so relieved...like something residing quietly in the
background that I´d been waiting for, anticipating, for all of my life...
I had been used to the viewpoint of counting
yourself as already dead, from the practice of martial arts...
But this put a further dimension to it...
This was not a case of putting away fear...it was more like looking
around and going ´Huh? Where did that fear thing go?´. It was a perspective or way of seeing that not just removed fear, but
illuminated the origins of fear, and left me seeing its reality as if it were effemeral...or more like, its only reality was
just a shadow...Its power was only over the things that had not become Real. The Holy Spirit was Reality...and washing over
me, permeating me; leaving my spirit in a realm that was removed from the zone where evil could exist, operate, or touch...Half
in and half out of the spiritual realm, I could be affected, but now -- never destroyed.
Self preservation was assured
once I gave up on trying to save my own life, and died to self, and gave myself over to God...I could now see and taste, as
something solid -- that to lose your life, surrendering -- was to gain eternal life...A trade, like in imitation of His sacrifice;
I trade my attempts to be my own god, nail them up; and God raises up a new me inside.
The fear of evil was gone. Untouchable by fear, that´s how I became,
once I was redeemed from evil.
Don´t mistake me, I was still able to embrace evil if I wanted to...but it´s repulsiveness
increased by an order of magnitude. It was more like evil could seek me out, but wouldn´t have an opening to lodge itself...(Ideally......But
humanly, I still stupidly, hardheadedly, leave openings; when I think and do selfish acts; where I forget what I´ve come out
from, and forget priorities; and become myopic to what is truly real and what is illusion.). (Remember, sin is not just an
offense against God, it´s an offense against yourself).
We are not perfect....and I´m trying to describe the ideal...which
sometimes I´m close to there, and sometimes I´m less than there...
The bigger the evil, the less the fear...(It´s the
little ones that can sneak in, in disguise) The large, truly evil, are contemptuously blatant, undisguised...intimidatingly
trying to terrorize into paralysis, to overwhelm, to threaten into submission -- to get you to give up your soul to preserve
your existance.....compromising to evil...
Knowing now that evil feeds on itself -- given no other target to corrupt,
Evil will always devour other evils...evil contains the fatal flaw that sows the seeds of its own demise. It eats itself (and
anything else that´s around, innocent or helpless, strong and arrogant, the unaware and the unprepared; anything that is not
shielded by the Creator.)...the Adversary´s internal social movement and dynamic is one of ´eat or be eaten´. (Yeah, sounds
like survival of the fittest, to me too...)
Most fears can boil down to fear of pain; which is felt to be a foretaste
to losing your life; or fear of rejection, that will lead to emptiness in your life; or fear of the unknown, that will lead
to being lost and losing track and control of your life...and on and on...it´s a fear of loss. To lose and never regain. To
diminish and never be able to recover. To be gone and forgotten. To never have mattered, like you never had existed in the
first place. The fear of extinction.
The fear of losing my identity was my greatest fear. My identity
of who I was, measured by the things I did, or wanted to do.
It even made me afraid of heaven....
Because if the things
I did were eliminated, what would be left of ´me´? Just like the cigarette identifies my avatar as the Stark, and the tipped
hat brim identifies BlackFriar; even if they were superficial, they seemed critical -- there were certain characteristics
that I assumed were not going to be acceptable in the afterlife (at least not in the form of them that I was comfortable with)
-- which made up my identity -- at least of what I could perceive of myself...
Then I discovered, when guided or prompted by the Spirit, that when
I was the reaching hand, and the invisible help, and the comforting word, and the untangling advice; all those things had
a flavor that was uniquely mine...all things of God, all things a good father would do for his child...All told and done through
a filter that was uniquely me...and my true self...because when I do those things, I feel a response deep down inside....That
was my True identity...
But a fear of death when connected to the Creator, is a contradiction
in terms...Death is no longer a separation from...it´s the end of being separated ever again...I´ve heard it called a doorway...but
it seems more to me -- like when you arrive home and finally get to take off your work clothes......
Remember, this is not a description of the Nature of something...this
is a description of the ways perception has shifted about a thing...
