By Richard Rohr
The gift of the Spirit is God’s own power to love unconditionally—and to transform the world by that power.
This gift of knowing the Spirit, of being able to love as God does, is the same gift we need today. We see the world on the brink of destruction, yet we are too often apathetic about it. We hear of wars and famines, yet we choose to ignore them. We watch the earth degrade around us, and we simply adjust our thermostats. Too many of us just want to be left alone, not bothered by someone else—not even God—making demands on us. All of this is evidence of something missing in our lives, and reveals that we do not really know the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is always a gratuitous gift. It’s always an unmerited favor. It’s always pure grace. Like wind, it cannot be seen. Like smoke, it cannot be controlled. The Spirit is elusive, blowing where it wills. Yet like fire, the Spirit can be felt. The Spirit is experienced as the warmth of God’s love. And like blood, it is experienced as an inner vitality. The Spirit is supremely intimate, yet supremely transcendent.
To enter into relationship with the risen Christ, we have to let go of ourselves, surrender control of our lives, and let the Spirit be given to us. We think that we might lose our individuality, yet surrendering to God actually increases it. For once in our lives, we’re truly free to become ourselves rather than what others want us to be. The highest form of self-possession is the capacity to give ourselves away. By giving ourselves completely to God, we come to be possessed by God and in full possession of ourselves at the same time.