The Third Person of the Trinity

To whom do I pray—the Father, the Son, or that elusive Person, the Holy Spirit? Does it make any difference? [As an aside, how often have we heard the Holy Spirit referred to as an “it”? Recall that Jesus said in John 16:12-13 that He would “send someone to walk beside us and guide us into all truth.” That sure sounds like a PERSON to me!]
How does one describe this elusive Person? A few decades ago, in an attempt to understand his rôle, I settled on the idea that He was the “communications arm” of the Trinity. He told us the things we needed to know, and was the channel through whom we could relate to the Father and the Son—even though clearly I couldn’t see or touch him. A few decades before that, during confirmation class at age 14, my Lutheran pastor used this analogy: my father was a doctor to his patients, a husband to my mother, and a dad to me—but he was all the same man, perceived from different perspectives: ditto for the triune God. That seemed to satisfy me better that anything I’d heard so far, and maybe since!
The upshot? I doubt God cares a whit to which person of his trinity we talk and listen, as long as we do it. He’ll hear us and speak to us–He always does! Sometimes it’s when we’re paying attention to him, sometime He jumps into our consciousness unexpectedly, but He’s ALWAYS trying to reach us. It’s up to us to keep focused on him.