Open Your Holy Ghost Hole

music by the Resistance Revival Chorus

When I was in high school my brother’s girlfriend, an evangelical Christian, invited us to her youth group. My brother and I were Catholic and taught to be wary of any sort of Protestantism, especially the kind that might try to convert us. But my brother loved the girl. I was fascinated with performative religiosity of all kinds. And we were both curious about whether or not our souls could in fact be saved.

After playing several rounds of pool in the church basement, the youth group leader gathered us in a circle for discussion and prayer. Open your heart to Jesus, he said, let him in and your life will become more incredible than you ever imagined. This didn’t sound too bad. I just worried how I’d explain it to my mother. When I gave my life to Jesus I just felt, like, peace come over me. You know? The Spirit filled me up with God’s love. The young woman who said this genuinely looked angelic, glowing with certainty. That sort of confidence was attractive. I figured I’d have to practice in the mirror to get it right.

Then the leader asked us to stand, hold hands, and close our eyes. It was time for prayer. I had more than a few prayers memorized, but when he started speaking I realized they weren’t going to be of use here. He started off with praise and thanks, asked the Spirit to reach out and grab us and shake us from our complacency, to sanctify us, and cleanse us of our sins. Then he started speaking in tongues.

Feel the spirit, he said. Feel it in you. This was the sign to join in. Slowly I heard voices around me speaking with him. None of the words made sense. I opened my eyes to see what my brother was doing. He was standing perfectly silent and still while the other kids around him swayed and sang and spoke in a cascade of syllables. I didn’t want to get caught with my eyes open, but I was glued to the scene before me. And I was damn jealous.

C’mon Jesus, I thought to myself. What do I have to do to get the Holy Ghost in here? My heart is open. C’mon in. I closed my eyes and willed the Spirit to manifest inside me. Was that a spark? I went with it and managed to produce a few lackluster sounds. I had to stop before I started scatting. Plus, I knew I was faking it. And I worried that everyone could tell. I’d invited Jesus and got bupkis.

I knew about the feast day of Pentecost. We celebrated it at my church with red banners and sprinkles of holy water, to remember our baptism. In the Christian bible, Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ disciples after Jesus’s death and resurrection. But this was a whole religion dedicated to it. I imagined the Spirit descending onto the heads of everyone in the circle, entering through a tiny little holy ghost hole and creating a flame that flickered like a blessing above their skulls. And above my head sat nothing but a failed experiment, a pyre of ash, and a puff of smoke.

Afterward we went to Beef-a-roo, a fast food chain housed in an old fire station. In the corner they’d left the old fireman’s pole, and I imagined the Holy Ghost sliding down ecstatically to find me. But instead of lighting me in flame, he doused with me water. Even in my imagination it felt like God was trying to tell me to just chill out.

When I became a minister and began to offer spiritual counsel, I learned of the large amount of people who use speaking in tongues as a method of prayer and spiritual practice. It occurred to me that what I’d been waiting for that day in the prayer circle—a sudden feeling of peace, of gratitude, of belonging—was part of a practice. Like every spiritual practice, from yoga to meditation to centering prayer, it requires commitment and consistency. As strange and spectacular as it seemed that day at youth group, it was nothing more or less than a community in prayer.

Several old medieval churches in Europe have Holy Spirit holes in their ceilings, to symbolize the Pentecost. On the feast day, rose petals are dropped through the hole to represent the fire of the spirit that descended on the apostles. Sometimes when I am walking under a cherry tree in springtime and the blossoms flutter around me, it feels like the same sort of blessing. It isn’t ecstatic trance, but it sure feels magical.

To stay open to these moments of grace and beauty, where I feel part of something larger than myself, requires a commitment to paying attention. It means every day tending to the holy ghost hole in my heart. Prayer and meditation and being part of a religious community are the ways I practice staying open. And slowly, subtly, I feel the peace and gratitude and love and belonging that I seek, that I have always been seeking. And sometimes I even feel ecstatic. And I dance.