In His Spirit

"I am the vine; you are the branches."   --John15:5

There are many aspects of the Holy Spirit, as it is known in the Christian world. Its activity while not limited to Christians, encompasses the whole of Creation; we learn of its presence and activities from the Gospels. More importantly we learn about its work from the experiences of our own lives.
 It's popular to think of luck, fortune or mere intuition as the active agents in one's world. And they are. But what if these activities are orchestrated, at least some times, by an over-arching energy, a spirit? What might that be like?

With the coming of the Spirit, there dawns a new thought in the world, a new way; while the Spirit, the angels and the sages were well known to Judaism, it is Christianity that carries it further, banking on the Spirit as part of a tri-une god. The way of the Christ for early Christians was their dawning of what today we think of as "Judeo-Christian" spirituality, even mystical experience.
Following the Christ in the Spirit does not mean conforming to a rigid code of behavior or thought; indeed the Spirit has come to set us and all captives free. Following in the Spirit does not mean that we are now without fault; indeed the Spirit brings forgiveness. Following in the Spirit does not mean denying our unique characteristics; indeed the Creator has already seen to that in forming us to be the good that we are.

Then what is this Spirit about? Jesuit theologian Richard Hauser writes in his classic introduction to the Holy Spirit, In His Spirit, that living under the influence of the Spirit, "[is] being forever concerned with 'building the Kingdom." From stories in the Bible one gets the impression that the Christ and those who follow, the disciples, are on the move.
They do not rest; such is their energy, their spirit and their joy at the realization of the existence of a heaven on earth. "Such is the Spirit's presence in the Christ and in the community that they are propelled forward in their work."

In this activity, they discover and experience the peace, joy and love rained down upon them by the Spirit, the Paraclete. This peacefulness, loving, kind nature is brought forward by the community. "In our day [when] Christians are becoming more and more conscious of responsibility for transforming the unjust structures of our societies through active involvement with society..."
 The Holy Spirit is our sanctifier. We are blessed and strengthened by its action, energized in our activity, in our prayer.

"The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray, the Spirit himself expresses our plea …" Romans 8

"The Father knows what you need before you ask him." Matthew 6


As we grow into a life in the Spirit, a life in its love, over time we may find greater ease in the expression of our innate self; the Spirit operates at the deepest levels of our beings. Its activity flows from the center of our daily lives because we are both bodies and spirits.
Thomas Merton, Christian mystic, insists that prayer is an expression of our entire being; it is rooted in life, and flows from life. In fact, in his view, meditation has no point and no reality unless it 's firmly rooted in life.

There are two principal ways the Spirit moves, easily recognized: first in times of happiness and consolations; secondly when we feel a quiet, inner peace, aware that God is with us; that we are loved wholly. This movement by the Spirit is unaccompanied by much intellectual activity.There is a quiet, a resting; words are less necessary as we come to know a person.
Good friends can enjoy each other's company and say very little. They know something of the heart of the other. The Spirit is many in its works.

Shepherd Me, Oh, Lord: The Mentally Ill Youth

Update: The story is similar, the place is an elementary school in Connecticut. The gun violence is obvious, but maybe not so the illness prompting it.

The recent, tragic events in a Colorado movie theater elementary school brings the topic of the mentally ill yet again to fore. This most recent mass shooting brings the public face to face with the mentally ill once more. In American society it has been the norm to keep the chronically mentally ill out of institutions and in local communities since the late 1970's. Those afflicted with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia, manic depression (now often referred to as Bi-Polar Depression), psychosis, certain personality disorders, paranoia, etc., are now commonly treated with scads of psychiatric medications. Thankfully for the many who suffer these illnesses, their "meds" and support from mental health professionals and loved ones, keeps them on an even keel. They can "function," as the medical community calls it. 

Update: The violence must not mask the need for medical attention for those suffering these types of illnesses.

Many of those affected work, study, hold advanced degrees, support families, and are friend to others. They are office mates, the person seated in the church pew next to us, the one inspecting produce at local farmers markets, walking dogs, attending their child's sporting events, our neighbor next door, the guy in the car stopped next to us, and most of the time we don't know they are ill. Quirky or moody--yes, but we do not think they are mentally ill. And that's the way it should be.

Many medical conditions are best left private. And since many of the mentally ill in our communities can function, that is to say that they can carry out most of their normal activities with little or no modifications on a normal day, it is right that they live at home, in their community, in our community. However things may go awry, and the public is reinvigorated, terrified even of the factors that cause mental illness and the fact that they just don't understand the low-functioning or non-functioning individual. Often for those who suffer various illnesses, their illness does not arise until the early adult years; some suffers have extremely high IQs. It may be more years until they arrive at treatment or appropriate support for their condition. And for some, the medications don't work, or they present terrible side effects such as diabetes or neurological damage, making their use perilous.

One famous Schizophrenic, John Nash, is a Mathematician and a Nobel Prize winner. In the book, A Beautiful Mind (later made into a movie by that title) the author, Sylvia Nasar, recounts his sad decline and descent into illness, the efforts to treat him and the striving of a community to accommodate him; when all failed, he dropped out, into the shadows for many years. Ahead of his time intellectually, it took just as many years for the world to recognize the genius of his "Game Theory" for which he received the Nobel Prize for Economic Theory.
Perhaps Nash's situation was ideal; it was not without grief and despair, failed and broken relationships, those who could not tolerate year in and year out of his quirky and unpredictable behavior.

And so it may be for the most recent perpetrator of the Aurora, Colorado Connecticut shootings. A killer he is alleged to be and possibly mentally ill, having slid into his current state over the past years.
 As a society is there not much else we might do to protect ourselves from these otherwise unprovoked attacks? We like to think cameras, doors, locks, security personnel will keep us safe; but they didn't here.
The man with the gun was heedless to it all. His weapons were acquired from home. His parent allowed their use on other occasions. She suffered the consequences for that. This family is also victimized.
 However, we may always hope that the Lord of All holds those afflicted and all those harmed by the weaknesses and failures of others in his sight.
"Shepherd me O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears" Psalm 23