The Trinity and Reconciliation

More "Good News"

The piece in the picture is a project of several days - still playing around with newspaper as a medium. I'm reasonably happy with this outcome, but wish it were clearer and less "messy." Collage is still a work in progress for me, but I am having fun and that's what counts.

This coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday. I love the image of this "family" of Holy Beings. I believe that each one of us has a different view of what these three look like. In William Young's book, "The Shack", he pictures the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in creative ways. Ignoring traditional "gender" qualifications (i.e. God is Father) he paints a picture of a lively and loving system of communication between the three persons of the Trinity. This picture of "holy relatedness" is the part of the book that I enjoyed the most. I was comforted by the ordinariness of their communication with each other.

The Trinity has been vastly described throughout the ages. Just reading the Creed of St. Anthanasius (The Book of Common Prayer, page 864) is enough to make you dizzy, "That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost." One substance, but three persons is confusing but I believe that we make it more complex than necessary. I also believe that if these three "different persons" can live as "one substance" it is an example of how we can also live together.

We are different persons - some of us are nurturing, some are artistic, and some are intellectuals. Some of us are really grounded in the work of everyday stuff and some of us (although our feet are on earth) see angels and hear music that the rest of us can't. That we are not all meant to be alike or think alike is "color" in an otherwise black and white world. So why is humanity's "colorfulness" the source of so much strife? It seems that there is so much we could gain in recognizing the common "substance" we all bear - the image of the God who created us; while appreciating the different "persons" we also exhibit in all our differences. Whether we are dark skinned or light, Latino or Anglo, male or female, Jew or Gentile, Buddhist or Muslim, gay or straight; we are created in One image - we bear One substance. That One substance makes us equal. It gives us hope becasue it is that One substance in us that seeks understanding in the common experience that we all bear.

Rublev's Icon of The Trinity

"Knowing the Trinity is being involved in this circling
movement: drawn by the Son towards the
Father, drawn into the Father’s breathing
out of the Spirit so that the Sons’ life
may be again made real in the world. It is where
contemplation and action become inseparable."

-Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ