Autism and the Holy Spirit
I’ve had thoughts floating around in my mind for months now about the Holy Spirit and how He seem so much like me. The more I read about the Holy Spirit, the more I see facets of autism--and I’m not trying to suggest that autism is some sort of extra dose of the Holy Spirit or any of that kind of “precious angel” type inspiration porn. I’m saying that a lot of my neurotypical peers have a hard time understanding the Holy Spirit, seeing and listening for the direction of the Holy Spirit. I do too; I haven’t actually, like, figured anything out, this is all just thoughts and realizations that I haven’t fully built into a cohesive train of thought. That’s kind of what’s happening here in this post I guess?
So. Beginning. Christians believe in a concept called the Trinity, or the “Triune” God (or at least certain denominations of Christians. I think there are some denominations that don’t, but I don’t know any offhand). This is the idea that there is one God who manifests Himself in three distinct ways: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each of which takes a distinct role, a set of duties.
The Holy Spirit is referred to as “the Counselor” in John 14:15-25, laying out the broad strokes of His role: “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit...will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.” (John 14:26 HCSB). In John and Acts, the Holy Spirit’s role is further delineated. He gives believers the power to forgive sins (John 20:23), to be God’s witness to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8), and generally to empower the believers in a way that the Father and the Son, in their respectives roles, cannot.
So, back to the point, the facets of Autism I see in the Holy Spirit that, once we start paying attention to, could make discerning His direction, His action in our lives a little bit easier. Maybe. I honestly don’t know and this is all kind of flow of consciousness, me dumping thoughts all at once.
The Holy Spirit communicates nonverbally. This isn’t something I’d say is 100% certain, but insofar as I’ve found, the Holy Spirit “fills” someone, “comes upon” someone, etc., and then the person so influenced speaks. This is one of those things where I need to learn the Greek and Aramaic and the grammar therein, but in most English translations the words spoken are attributed to the person, and only inspired by the Spirit.
“Then being filled of the Holy Spirit, Peter said to them...” (Acts 4:7 LITV),
“Then Peter, being filled with the Holy Spirit. said...” (YLT),
“Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said...” (KJV)
All of this implies that the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak much. He communicates what needs to be said to the person who needs to say and it’s implied that he does so nonverbally.
The Holy Spirit echolalates (is echolalic?)--”...For [The Holy Spirit] will not speak on His own, but will speak whatever He hears...” (John 16:13 HCSB). I don’t know what to add here. The Holy Spirit hears and repeats. Whether it’s a matter of this being the rare kind of moment when the Spirit speaks, or perhaps He’s repeating Himself in a nonverbal way.
I thought I had more stuff. I think I do. I just didn’t write it down, or if I did I didn’t write it down in the places I usually do. But even this is enough to raise some interesting implications about how the Holy Spirit works vs how Christians tend to want the Spirit to work.
We want our directions, our teaching, our inspiration, to be this big loud thing. Blatant. Obvious. We want the Father speaking to us out of a burning bush, Jesus teaching us in the shade of a mountain. But those days are gone and we have the Holy Spirit, who speaks in nudges and taps on pages we’ve read a dozen times before.
I can see so much of myself in the Holy Spirit, or vice versa or whatever, and I actually had a second half of this closing thought, but it’s just gone. I’m helping my mom around the house ‘cause she just had knee surgery so I’ve been working on this and then having to walk away to help and then back and then away and I’ve just run out of steam.
And that’s a fun challenge for studying the Bible when you’re neurodivergent, yeah? Just completely running out of steam, out of spoons, mid thought, mid chapter, whatever. And then you try to come back the next day but you’re kind of lost and so you start over and then burn out at the same spot all over again and don’t make any progress.
