The Trinity by Andrei Rublev c. 1426, tempera on panel via Tretyakov Gallery | Taking the well-known biblical story ‘The Hospitality of Abraham,’ when the Lord appeared to Abraham as three travelers. As a starting point, Rublev stripped this story of secondary detail and turned it into a symbolic representation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity - God being one, but in three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. via Alexandra Guzeva
At our baptism, the priest or pastor said “I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The Greek word for baptise means to plunge or submerge, meaning that at baptism we experienced a plunging into the eternal relationship, ie the Trinity. When we make the sign of the cross, we invoke the Trinity, we remember our baptism. We might feel intimidated or embarrassed to do so, and we should not.
The Trinity provides the foundation for our own life and faith. It matters that the G-dhead contains three persons in One. This cosmic relationship provides a blueprint that guides us in our own relationships. Think about the relationality of the world. The fundamental building block of the world, the atom, exists as a composite of subatomic particles (proton, electron, neutron) in a kind of relationship. When more than one atom form a chemical bond, we call that a molecule. In nature, reproduction embodies a kind of relationship.
We were made by and for G-d. When we accept our position as the 4th person of the Trinity, we experience G-d’s love from the inside. What if we thought of the Trinity as the original family? When we trace the sign of the Cross on our body, we remind ourselves of our relationship with the G-dhead. We can have nothing materially, and yet through G-d we have everything.
Y’know the thing that strikes me as I ponder the meaning of Holy Trinity Sunday?
The sad fact that, despite the evidence all around us of the relationality embedded into and imprinted onto Creation, despite all the living proof that daily inundates us with the vital importance and truth of union, of relationship — we continue to wall ourselves away from one another, from our Self, we continue to build siloes and plunge ourselves into the depth of these prisons we’ve build for ourselves. Yes, reader: silo=prison. We make ourselves into mini gods, deigning to place those whom we Other into boxes, assigning them worth, forgetting we ourselves lack worthiness. We don’t trust in G-d, we don’t believe in Jesus, we don’t believe His words that He will draw all men to Himself. It’s as though we don’t want His plan to succeed. We close ourselves off to the Holy Spirit.
Why do we do this?
In the last two days alone I’ve seen Protestants and Catholics bickering, I’ve seen some pro Israel social media figures calling the 7/10 massacre “a lesson” for the left leaning peace activists who suffered capture, torture, murder of their family, or their own brutal murder. I’ve seen Nova Festival massacre victims described as useful idiots because they may have held critical views of the Netanyahu regime and Bibi’s Kahanist enablers.
I’ve seen BC Conservatives poo-poo the opportunity for a new direction recently afforded their party when their favourite leadership candidate didn’t win. I’ve seen immigrants described as dangerous alien invaders.
I’ve seen women fighting against the trans cult for the protection of sex as a category called any number of pejorative names and exiled, “this is a TERF free zone,” say trans cultists. I’ve seem Zionists receive the same ostracism, “Zionists not welcome,” say the signs held and/or created by antisemites. Yes reader: Zionist=Jew, and Antizionism=antisemitism.
Over the past five years I’ve seen grievance cultists brainwashed into an ideological hysteria over a thing that never happened call for the imprisonment of anyone who questions their political position regarding the thing that never happened — ie, the false narrative of the mass graves in Kamloops and elsewhere in Canada.
Look reader, there is no Other. Your sh1t stinks just like mine and his and hers does. We are the same under the hood. I worked as a medsurg nurse and I can tell you that for utter certainty. Unite. Break down the walls of your heart, break free from your silo. Let’s smash those siloes together. Unity is the way of life. Separation is the way of death.