Lights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch. Every gateway between the world and ourselves is used at a restaurant. The industry knows this well, because they want to give you an experience when you go to a restaurant. A memorable experience that keeps drawing you back. What makes up this experience?

Sitting at a table in a restaurant bombards your senses. In the realm of touch, you have your chair, the napkins, and the utensils. Let’s not forget your outfit from your shoes to your hairstyle. The realm of hearing gives you sensation of muffled conversation, music in the background, plates clattering, God willing some laughter. The realm of taste is of course the food, and appetizers, and drinks. The realm of smell tantalizes the various possibilities of what to eat. The most dominant of the senses will be sight. There are lights, decorations, activity, and presentation. All the while you are sitting at the chair.

All of these elements combine to form the atmosphere. The atmosphere is that mysterious combination that sets the mood and tone of the evening. Every romantic date needs some atmosphere. The curious feature of creating an atmosphere is that there is no singular cause. No, no singular cause, but it is a combination of things.

If you were to take away one item in the picture set above, then a great portion of the atmosphere will disappear. What would a romantic dinner plate set up look like without a table cloth? Would silence give the same feeling as smooth jazz? What if there were no smells or worse a foul odor? Would the night be less romantic in basketball shorts as in formal slacks? Could the atmosphere survive with some fast food items as opposed to microwave meals?

There is a consistent quirk in humanity where the smallest of mistakes is given the greatest of attention, but the largest of successes are taken for granted. This phenomenon of atmosphere is no different. How everything can be set perfectly, but that one thing out of place is what dominates our attention.

The Holy Spirit can be described as something similar. The Holy Spirit is the third person in the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the most mysterious of the persons of the Trinity, because it defies the human language to be defined. The theologians says that God the Father and God the Son exchange a mutual gift of love with such completeness and wholeness and vitality that a third person emerges as God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, any discussion of the Holy Spirit is nearly impossible if we were to isolate the third person of the Trinity from the other two.

I find the best way to describe the Holy Spirit is with this analogy of atmosphere. The Holy Spirit may be found in prayer, scripture, service to others, growing in virtue, and so many other elements of the faith. However, the difficulty is that the Third person of the trinity has even less of a concrete expression of who it is than the other persons of the Trinity. Where can we find the Holy Spirit? The comforter, the advocate, who can only arrive after the Son has returned to the Father.

The Holy Spirit is found in our interactions with all of God’s creation. Just like atmosphere, there is no singular cause to growing in a relationship with the Holy Spirit. It is difficult to say just do “x” and you will know the Holy Spirit. It is still difficult to give a ten step program to know the Holy Spirit. The challenge is sharing in the Love shared between The Father and The Son. We know the Holy Spirit the same as we are able to recognize a romantic atmosphere.

The fruits of the Holy Spirit is what we feel when we are living in that Trinitarian love. How do we know the Holy Spirit? By living as Jesus lived. By showing Love, gentleness, peace, patience, Faithfulness, self-control, Joy, goodness, and kindness. We may not be able to use language to describe the Holy Spirit, but we will come to know the Third Person of the Trinity. As we imitate Christ, God the Father will love us as He loves His Son. As God loves us, then His love that is given to God the Son is shared with us. God the Holy Spirit is then given to us and, God willing, we then return the Holy Spirit back to God the Father in gratitude and thanksgiving.

God is Love. That is all that we need to understand. The Holy Spirit is when we join the romantic atmosphere of the Trinitarian lifestyle.