{"id":18006,"date":"2019-05-06T09:51:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T13:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18006"},"modified":"2019-05-06T10:00:09","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T14:00:09","slug":"trinity-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18006","title":{"rendered":"Trinity: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/99I4oXolq2E\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Trinity: MIA<\/strong><br>Sunday, May 5, 2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904\u20131984) suggested that \u201cChristians are, in their practical life, almost mere \u2018monotheists.\u2019 We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.\u201d [1]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until quite recently, I would admit Rahner was largely correct. Now science affirms the Trinitarian intuition that the foundational nature of reality is relational; everything is in relationship with everything! Interest and appreciation for the Trinity are growing. [2] For the first time since fourth-century Cappadocia, the Trinity has actually become a topic of conversation for lay people, not only theologians. I am so glad, as the Trinity has the potential to change our relationships, our culture, and our politics for the better!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mystery of Trinity is embedded as the code in everything that exists. If there is only one God and if there is one pattern to this God, then we can expect to find this same pattern everywhere else. Why was Trinity missing in action for so many centuries? Could this absence help us understand how we might still be in the infancy stage of Christianity? Could it help explain the ineffectiveness and lack of transformation we witness in so much of Christendom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u201cBlessed Trinity\u201d is supposed to be the central Christian doctrine. And yet many of us were told\u2014as I was as a young boy in Kansas\u2014that we shouldn\u2019t try to understand it because it\u2019s a \u201cmystery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I see<em>&nbsp;mystery<\/em>&nbsp;not as something you&nbsp;<em>canno<\/em>t understand; rather, it is something that you can&nbsp;<em>endlessly<\/em>&nbsp;<em>understand<\/em>! There is no point at which you can say, \u201cI\u2019ve got it.\u201d Always and forever, mystery gets&nbsp;<em>you<\/em>! In the same way, you don\u2019t hold God in your pocket; rather, God holds you and knows your deepest identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we describe God, we can only use similes, analogies, and metaphors. All theological language is an approximation, offered tentatively in holy awe. We can say, \u201cIt\u2019s like . . .\u201d or \u201cIt\u2019s similar to . . .\u201d; but we can never say with absolute certainty, \u201cIt is . . .\u201d because we are in the realm of beyond, of transcendence, of mystery. We absolutely must maintain humility before the Great Mystery; otherwise, religion worships itself and its formulations instead of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The very mystical Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, and Basil of Caesarea) of fourth-century eastern Turkey eventually developed some highly sophisticated thinking on what the Christian church soon called the Trinity. It took three centuries of reflection on the Gospels to have the courage to say it and offer the best metaphor they could find. The Greek word they daringly used was&nbsp;<em>perichoresis<\/em>&nbsp;or circle dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whatever is going on in God is&nbsp;<em>a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion&nbsp;<\/em>between Three\u2014a circle dance of love. God is Absolute Friendship. God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself. This pattern mirrors the perpetual orbit of electron, proton, and neutron that creates every atom, which is the substratum of the entire physical universe. Everything is indeed&nbsp;<em>like<\/em>&nbsp;\u201cthe image and likeness of God\u201d (Genesis 1:26-27).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Take Your Place at the Table<\/strong><br>Monday, May 6, 2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In Genesis, we see the divine dance in an early enigmatic story (18:1-8). \u201cThe Lord\u201d appears to Abraham as \u201cthree men\u201d or \u201cthree angels,\u201d and Abraham and Sarah seem to see the Holy One in the presence of these three; they bow before them and call them \u201clord\u201d (18:2-3, Jerusalem Bible). Abraham and Sarah\u2019s first instinct is one of invitation and hospitality\u2014to create a space of food and drink for the guests. Here we have humanity feeding God; it will take a long time to turn that around in the human imagination, to believe that we, too, could be invited to the divine table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This story inspired a piece of devotional religious art by iconographer Andrei Rublev (c. 1360\u2013c. 1430):&nbsp;<em>The Hospitality of Abraham<\/em>, or simply&nbsp;<em>The Trinity.<\/em>As icons do, this painting attempts to point beyond itself, inviting a sense of both the&nbsp;<em>beyond<\/em>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<em>communion<\/em>&nbsp;that exists in our midst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are three significant colors in Rublev\u2019s icon, each illustrating a facet of the Holy One:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Gold: \u201cthe Father\u201d\u2014perfection, fullness, wholeness, the ultimate Source<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Blue: \u201cthe Incarnate Christ\u201d\u2014both sea and sky mirroring one another (In the icon, Christ wears blue and holds up two fingers, telling us he has put spirit and matter, divinity and humanity, together within himself. The blue of creation is undergirded with the red of suffering.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Green: \u201cthe Spirit\u201d\u2014the divine photosynthesis that grows everything from within by transforming light into itself (Hildegard of Bingen [1098\u20131179] called this&nbsp;<em>viriditas,&nbsp;<\/em>or the greening of all things.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The icon shows the Holy One in the form of Three, eating and drinking, in infinite hospitality and utter enjoyment between themselves. If we take the depiction of God in&nbsp;<em>The Trinity<\/em>&nbsp;seriously, we have to say, \u201cIn the beginning was the Relationship.\u201d The gaze between the Three shows the deep respect between them as they all share from a common bowl. Notice the Spirit\u2019s hand points toward the open and fourth place at the table! Is the Holy Spirit inviting, offering, and clearing space? I think so! And if so, for what, and for whom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the front of the table there appears to be a little rectangular hole. Most people just pass right over it, but some art historians believe the residue of possible glue on the original icon indicates that there was perhaps once a mirror glued to the front of the table. It\u2019s stunning when you think about it: There was room at this table for a fourth\u2014the one in the mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The observer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>You!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, you\u2014and all of creation\u2014are invited to sit at the divine table, to participate in the divine dance of mutual friendship and love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mirror seems to have been lost over the centuries, both in the icon and in our on-the-ground understanding of who God is\u2014and therefore who we are, too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trinity: MIASunday, May 5, 2019 Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner (1904\u20131984) suggested that \u201cChristians are, in their practical life, almost mere \u2018monotheists.\u2019 We must be willing to admit that, should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged.\u201d [1]&nbsp; Until quite recently, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18006"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18008,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18006\/revisions\/18008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}