Pseudo-Macarius on Begging, pt. 2

In regard to what I wrote about Pseudo-Macarius yesterday, the ever-perceptive Grateful Bear asks:

Why must we "beg while here on earth to receive the divine Spirit"? Doesn't the Holy Spirit already dwell within us? Why beg for something we already have? Begging for something God has already given seems like ungratefulness, or blindness to the blessings of God, or even a refusal to receive God's blessings.

Sometimes you step into a paradox, and you don't realize it until you've walked along a ways and start to wonder what that funky smell is that's coming up from your shoe.

This appears to be one of those times.

Of course the Holy Spirit already dwells within us — God is everywhere, even in hell. (if you proof-texters don't believe me, check out  Psalm 139:8).  And yet, how many of us find God in the stop-and-go of rush hour traffic? While listening to an annoying neighbor whine about her husband? While changing diapers, or completing our tax returns? In the midst of diarrhea? Or for that matter, while watching an exciting movie? While eating that third helping of ice cream after a stressful day at work? While flirting up that really cute someone who works two cubicles down?

Come on, now — be honest.  Again and again and again, we all dance away from any conscious recognition that we carry the indwelling presence of the Holy One.

And that is what I think Pseudo-Macarius  counsels us to beg for. The way I see it, "receiving the Holy Spirit" is not some one-time event that occurs at baptism or confirmation or when you're born again or whenever... it's a continual inpouring, a continual dance of participation, of re-recognition and re-turning to the Source of Love that is there all along. And while we may not particularly want to receive the Holy Spirit in the midst of rush hour (when it's so much fun to be angry) or during that flirt session with the married co-worker, perhaps those are the times we most need to be partakers of the Divine Nature.

And so, our begging God for the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is not about asking a miserly Other to begrudgingly give something that we might not otherwise get. On the contrary, it's a way of short-circuiting our own ego, which is so invested in being in control that it has a myriad of effective ways to ignore the very presence of that ever-giving Other within us. As I said yesterday, begging is undignified, and it's humiliating and embarrassing. In other words, it's a perfect way to tie the ego into apoplectically-appalled knots of self-righteous indignation: thereby distracting it long enough to allow the already-present presence of the Holy One to shine forth.