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| Christmas Morning - South Jordan Utah |
The Holy Spirit
As Luminous Epinoia
Many early Christian writers wrote in Greek and used the uniquely Greek term “epinoia” when describing the divine testifier, revealer of truth, and comforter modern Christians call The Holy Spirit. There is no word to word translation into English. It means creative insight or inventive wisdom coming from the higher connections of spirit. This definition adds a layer of understanding often overlooked.
Pondering the roles of testifier, revealer, and comforter, the Holy Spirit as luminous Epinoia adds context to the Mormon term “burning bosom.” Instead of being merely some etherial switching on of an emotional response, the Holy Spirit enlightens our mind to provide a moment of clarity where we can briefly transcend, in some small measure, this plane of limited human understanding and sense the bigger picture. It is in those moments of enhanced awareness that we, as thoughtful feeling beings, experience a natural emotional response. The burning bosom alone is not enough to identify the Spirit in any of its active roles.
Instinctively, most of us understand this expanded definition to be true. I only bring it up here because it seems to have fallen out of use in modern Mormon culture and that’s a real shame. Now, that’s not to say those experiences involving just an emotional response aren’t meaningful. It’s just worth noting that the “meaning” may be more illusive than we may think. I like to consider these as margin notes from God saying an experience is important and then it is our job to figure out why. Sometimes, the answers are surprising.
This understanding helped me reconcile a lifetime of seemingly conflicting “spiritual” messages. It’s important to take personal ownership of your spiritual journey... and not allow others to define it for you. As well meaning as others may be, their interpretation and their vision is theirs alone. Yours must be yours and yours alone for it to have any real and lasting meaning and effect.
