Concerning the Holy Spirit, Frederick...
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Concerning the Holy Spirit, Frederick Buechner writes in his book Wishful Thinking the following: "The word spirit has come to mean something pale and shapeless, like an unmade bed. School spirit, the American spirit, the Christmas spirit, the spirit of '76, the Holy Spirit -- each of these points to something you know is supposed to get you to your feet cheering but which you somehow can't rise to ... "Like its counterparts in Hebrew and Greek, the Latin word spiritus originally meant breath ... and breath is what you have when you're alive and don't have when you're dead. Thus spirit equals breath equals life, the aliveness and power of your life ... "Spirit is highly contagious. When a man is very excited, very happy, very sad, you can catch it from him as easily as measles or a yawn. "God also has a spirit -- is Spirit, says the Apostle John. Thus God is the power of the power of life itself, has breathed and continues to breathe himself into his creation. In-spires it. The spirit of God, Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, is highly contagious. When Peter and his friends were caught up in it at Jerusalem on Pentecost, everybody thought they were drunk even though the sun wasn't over the yardarm. They were." -- Joseph
