Can someone like me posses the holy spirit and be called by it to do good?

When we speak about the holy spirit, writes Henri Nouwen, we talk about the breath of God, breathing inside of us.

The Greek word for “spirit” is pneuma, which means “breath.” We are seldom aware of our breathing. We only think about it when something is wrong with it.

The spirit of good is like my breath. I think about it most when something is wrong with me or the world around me. I think about it a lot now. It has shaped my life.

At this time, I need the holy spirit more than ever. It grounds me and sustains me and my work. It connects me to other people in the most personal and uplifting way.

Without it, I cannot live a spiritual life or navigate all the suffering and anger around me.  I would not know how to do good in a meaningful way.

I think sometimes I had never felt true spirituality until I joined up with hundreds of unseen people to feed the hungry refugee families of Bishop Maginn High School in the first days and weeks of this pandemic.

I used to think this was a Christian idea, not available to me.

But almost every faith embraces the idea of the holy spirit in us in one way or the other. And I have come to see that the holy spirit is inside of all of us, whatever we call it, and whether we hear it or not.

Am I am not alone with it, for sure.

It is the holy spirit that prays in us, who offers us the gifts of love, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, peace, and joy. It is the holy spirit that offers us the life that death cannot destroy. It is the holy spirit that calls us to do good.

My friend Sue Silverstein, the theology and art teacher at Bishop Maginn High School and a good friend, says I can possess the holy spirit, and do.

We have worked closely together almost every day for the past year to help the refugee students and families at Bishop Maginn High School in Albany.

There is a strong spiritual connection between Sue and me, and it centers around caring for the refugee children and families around us. I found that is often the source of deep friendship in my life – a shared experience of this spirit.

“I absolutely feel the Holy Spirit is working through you,” she told me when I asked her about it.

This surprised me, and I was also surprised by how pleased I was to hear it. This spirit is in all of us, I believe.

I’ve always been a forager and a parasite when it comes to religion. I take a bit here and there, but I never swallow the whole thing.

Whenever I get too close to one religion or another, I am pressured to accept things I can’t accept and follow dogma that is alien to me. Only the Quakers accepted me as I am, without reservation or qualification.

Of all these writings, I feel closest to the Kabbalah, the texts of the Hebrew mystics in medieval times.  Every act of love and kindness, says the Kabbalah, raises the vibration of the universe.

I think those small acts of great kindness are the holy spirit in me.

The Kabbalah also says, “Two things define you. Your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything.”

The spiritual life is precious to me, I pick and choose from different faiths and mix them all in my brew. It is empowering to do that, to tell the priests and rabbis, thanks for your help, but I can find my way.

I feel the holy spirit is inside of me, it calls me to see the truth in me, good and bad, and calls me to write, love, photograph color, and light the creative spark that I see as a gift in all of us from God.

At different times I am Christian, part Quaker, part Jewish, even part Catholic. There are beautiful things about faith, and I never quite land anywhere for good. I am too restless for that, and too damaged.

The holy spirit is the spirit of God, however, one defines him or her.

For the majority of Christians, the Holy Spirit, sometimes called the Holy Ghost, is the third person of the Trinity, the Triune God manifested as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit also exists in the Kabbalah.  The Hebrew term  rush ha-godesh is most commonly translated in the Kabbalah as “the holy spirit.”

The Kabbalah teaches, as Jesus teaches, and the Bible teaches,  that our primary purpose on the earth is to do good for other people, especially the poor and the needy.

But the Bible, like Jesus himself, is exploited and ignored so often both are losing meaning in the modern world. I believe the true spirit of both is being reborn.

The idea that I didn’t have to be good to do good was a revelation to me; I always thought I was unworthy of a holy spirit. And I don’t need to be a saint, which is a good thing.

I have embraced this teaching as a calling. I try to do good every single day of my life. I plan this at the beginning of each week and check my list or add to it every single day.

One theologian described the hallmark of the holy spirit as the inner pulse to do good, the gentle wind at one’s back that calls us to a better place.

In the Kabbalah, the holy spirit is often manifested as a prophecy.

This is faith. The holy spirit is powerful and tough. It is the safe place in a storm.

The holy spirit is mentioned in the Quran several times, clearly defined as the angel Gabriel, the angel-messenger between God and Mary, Jesus, and the Prophet Muhammed.

I am not a holy man; I am an imperfect man called to try to be good and do good. And I have attracted other people who live with the holy spirit and are called to do good.

We seem to find one another, another thing beyond my power alone.

This work has been successful beyond my expectations or capabilities; some force or energy is helping me and driving me forward. It can’t just be me.

Four years ago, as the bitter divisions in the country became more pronounced, I felt this call from inside of me, and the result was the Army Of Good.

I felt a call to write about politics again a month or so ago; I had the sense that I could help calm people and help myself understand the conflicts roiling the country.

My writing has received a strong response, some good some bad.

Some people say it helps them; some say it doesn’t. My pieces have been shared all over the country and some of the world. I don’t have the power to do that by myself.

There is a spiritual energy that is calling me and guiding me and sharing my work. There is no other explanation for it.

“Just excellent,” wrote Nora yesterday, “thanks for sharing. Wonderful insight. Please keep these posts coming….we need them.” I

“How dare you?” wrote Ed, “you should not be allowed to write this awful drivel on Facebook.”

If I were sitting down with Ed, I would tell him that a calling is not like a job, and my writing about this turmoil is a calling, not a job. That’s why I had to do it, and that’s why I will keep on doing it until the spirit fades or dies or calls me to something else.

I used to think this flightiness was a part of being crazy, but I now see it is part of the holy spirit inside of me, demanding to come out and be heard.

As an analyst told me once that there was a mystic in me and an empath. I was a person who seeks by contemplation or self-surrender to be unified by the divine, and who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond my intellect.

I appreciate being loved; it is my destiny to be the object of criticism, even scorn.  People will tell me that they enjoy being challenged to think, but often, they will hate me for it.

I do not ever feel that the holy spirit rising in me means that I am good, or that I am right. It merely means I am called to do good by the holy spirit inside of me; I was listening. I just practice contemplation and inspiration and self-surrender. The spirits of the divine do not yet unify me.

But I feel the holy spirit is an experience that binds us, leads us to our better angels, and teaches us the most glorious part of being a human being.

The news can never take that from me.