Wild Goose Chase

There are so many books, blogs, speakers, etc. telling us how to live the faith. So many self-proclaimed experts making a living by encouraging us that we can just need to try this advice, do these prayers, follow these steps and our spiritual lives will deepen and flourish.

I’m not saying all the advice is bad or ill-intentioned. In fact, it probably usually comes from a sincere desire to help people and share the faith. But, faith is so individualized; our journeys progress at different paces, and we require different signs and practices. We can search, but we can’t find the Spirit by following the right step-by-step instructions or attending the right conferences.

The Spirit is beyond our control. Or mine at least. Maybe there are those to have full control over when and where the Spirit moves in them. But I don’t. I cannot plan the times that touch me deeply, that linger with no words for no discernable reason. And I do try to discern.

I can travel across the world to a holy pilgrimage site, a place covered in gold and statues, steeped in centuries of people’s prayers…and not be moved. Then I can walk into a local church whose contemporary architecture and bad music I often deride for an impromptu holy hour…and find words of prayer and contemplation pouring forth. Why not there? Why now? I don’t know. Those moments rarely come with answers, just movement in my soul that lingers in my memory for years. A particular Sunday in my regular pew. A rainy afternoon in Yorkshire. A sudden realization on the highway. Stillness, comfort, confusion but gratitude. Gratitude to God making himself known, for giving me those mystical moments that defy my understanding.

I know it’s a dangerous road to try to chase that high, to try to create those holy moments. I would burn out forcing myself into settings and retreats, devouring materials trying to find the right book, right reflection, right advice that unlocks the key. There is no key. The Spirit isn’t a lock. The Spirit is a bird, free to move as he pleases and land when and where he wants. I can be open. I can be patient. I can be grateful. But I can’t control or capture.

Although most commonly depicted as a dove, the Holy Spirit has also been depicted as a wild goose. Geese are vigilant and protective. They can be disruptive. They are untamed. A wild goose chase is “a hopeless search for something that is impossible to find.” The search, in fact, is full of hope. But we are not finding the Spirit. He is finding us.

Come, Holy Spirit.