Seeking to Talk about "Spiritual Gifts" in a Secualr Context/ Steve Hamilton
Dave's recent post on the Holy Spirit reminded me of something that happened here recently. One of my most secular friends brought up "spiritual gifts" the other day in conversation - how it exactly came up I can't quite recall because it is rather an odd topic for this bunch - and as the sarcasm and ridicule died down after a bit, they turned to me and wondered what their token Christian thought. So, pausing briefly - because I wasn't sure just how to enter into it - I thought I'd just go for it! I began speaking of my own experience in this type of thing regarding the Holy Spirit - as speaking my own experience and seeking to remove all Christianese from my conversation typically gets a hearing in this crowd. I first described - in a well-received manner - spiritual gifts as they were described to me in the Wimber-esque way of them being like a tool box that always has the right tool for the right situation, if you look in the tool box. Being mostly men who have experience with weekend projects and credit accouints
with Home Depot, they could definitely identify with "getting the right tool for the job." In the midst of my own ramblings about my understanding and my own experience, I was groping for metaphors that they might be able to grab a hold of, and I think together we found a couple that seemed to take-hold of their imagination.
Intuition/Insight - I also described how some times, when I focus and listen to someone, in some way I "understand" even more than what they are saying and as we talk, they say, "How did you know that!?" because sometimes I "know" stuff. We batted this one around a lot, and of course they were like, "You're a mind-reader!", or "You have clairvoyance?" but as they had me describe it more and more they seemed to just settle for the metaphor of intuition or insight, which seemed to mean to them perceiving deeply or a larger, immediate comprehension of what people are saying underneath what they are saying.
Good luck charm - I was saying that I thought my initial gifting that I have discerned typically happens through me had to do with what scripture refers to as the gift of "helps"...in that when I come at some situation or crisis or what have you, if I am really intending to just be helpful, something extra special ends up happening for the other people and things go better than expected, even though perhaps unexpectedly so. To which, one of my friends - who happens to be the biggest X-Men buff of all X-Men buffs! - said that was like the power of this super hero called Longshot. Apparently, when Longshot seeks to just be of help to someone, his "power" makes everything go really well for all. Interestingly enough, they seemed to all get that...and then the jokes ensued about taking me along like a good luck charm or attaching me to their keychain like a rabbit's foot and dragging me along with them.
Super-Strength - With the comic book reference fully on the table, I thought - what they hell, might as well - and I turned to the fantastical. I told them two stories of the legend of my mother - who shall remain nameless here to guard her secret identity! The first was when my mom and her brothers and sisters were younger and working on a small farm my grandparents had outside of St. Louis, Missouri. One day my uncle Jim was running a team of mules hauling hay in a wagon that my mom, my Aunt Jessie and Uncle Joe were all riding on lounging back in the hay. Well, the mules got spooked and started running wildly down a slope toward a small creek near the farm. Jim lost control and the wagon went into the creek, tipping over and throwing most of the family off into the water…but my mom was trapped underneath. As my Aunt Jessie tells it, she was running over to the upside-down wagon to help my mom, when all of the sudden my mother stood up in the water lifted the large wagon on her back and threw the wagon that had been carrying them all off her with a shrug of her shoulders. My Aunt, flabbergasted by the display of strength could only watch and then start laughing with everyone else.
The second story (from Aunt Jessie, my mom's older sister) was from when they were teenagers. My mother and Aunt Jessie were riding around with their two cousins in one of the guys new convertible ’57 Chevy. Of course, they were hot-rodding on the back roads, when all of the sudden, coming around a bend in the road, they lost it in some gravel and the car flipped over several times and most everyone was thrown from the car (this being back before seat-belt laws). My mother was thrown to one side and after being dazed for a few minutes, she realized my Aunt Jessie was trapped and being crushed underneath the upside-down car. As my mother realized this, she went over and lifted the car up and ordered her two cousins (both men I might add) to crawl over and get Jessie out of there. OK, so maybe it was the Spirit of the Living God empowering my mother to do amazing feats of strength in dangerous situations. And maybe it was adrenaline coursing through my mother’s veins empowering her to do these things. Let me say this first: either way - for me - it’s God. Either He empowered her through the Spirit or through biology, but He’s behind both, so I don’t have a problem with how He does it, I just embrace that He does. Besides adrenaliine, we couldn't really come up with any other good secular metaphor for this besides the comic-booky-Wonder-Woman-type thing.
So, I wanted to share this conversation with all of you, where I thought mostly secular people were honestly - if even with a lot of humour - grappling with spiritual stuff. But what I'd love to hear from this crowd is what do you think? Do metaphors help in a conversation like this at all? Or does it bring down the "cred" of the Holy Spirit (which seemed to me to be my most honest tension in this conversation - it wasn't about me or my super hero mom having "powers" so much as Something else moving through me and me kind of cooperating or at least trying to cooperate!)? Thoughts?
