Last week was Trinity Sunday. The bulletin suggested that study of such a mystery is best left to the theologians, but I disagree: what's the point of a mystery if it can be understood? When I was a child, the Trinity was explained with the apple analogy; core, peel, meat. Each are part of the apple but none the whole of it. (I don't necessarily agree with this view). Several years ago I was introduced to the idea that we understand the parts of the Trinity where God acts - Father as Creator, Son as Redeemer, and oddly I can't remember the action/word for the Holy Spirit.
Here is another way of seeing. God is God, and the Lord is one. The Father could be considered as the Unmanifest. The Son, Christ, as the Manifest, all that which can be said to exist. (Yes, you and I, too.) The Holy Spirit is the thing that moves among them; among the Unmanifest, among the Manifest, between the two. (Inadequate words, if I find better ones, I'll add them.) Each is complete by itself. Each fully encompasses the others.
I've probably heard that before, but I see/understand/know it now. The words are just labels, pointing at concepts... which correspond to my experience. It's inordinately helpful to have some sort of framework by which to make sense of experience.
Corpus Christi is today and Pentecost was three weeks ago. Pentecost was about us - God dwelling in us. Corpus Christi, too, is about us - we are the body of Christ. God is outside of us, and God is us, and God dwells in us. Or, we are outside of God, and we are within God, and we contain God. The whole, together - which is, which isn't, and which is among them - is the fullness of God. And yet, so are we.
Complete in essence, incomplete in form - I'm only certain of the former.
Getting it? No? Then stop thinking. (That road doesn't go there.) You will.
As I said, this is better left with the mystics.
It is not understood by those who understand it; it is understood by those who do not understand it.
-Kena Upanishad
Namaste.
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3 comments:
You really sound like you don't know where this whole thing came from? How sensitive are you?
You want to 'know', you are intellectual, insistant upon it, yet? Yet you seem to choose not to know, why? Maybe I am wrong?
With a nod and a wink to that which is best in you. With love and celebration for that which is mystical and beautiful in you. With awe at times that you can be so wise a muse. With Hope and Love that we will both succeed in this endeavor spoken of in the Kena Upanishad.
Jim, What do you mean by "this whole thing" - this post, the last group upon which you've commented, or something else? At one time you say I am back (if so, from where) and at another that I am living a lie (is that so?). Which?
John, Namaste!
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