When I was about nine years old, I stood in the bathroom on the second floor of the house that I grew up in. I was looking in the mirror, and it hit me. I say “it” because I don’t know how to describe the event that occurred. All of a sudden, I began to wonder who I really was and how I had gotten to this planet, to this existence, to this tiny little bathroom on the second floor in New Haven, Connecticut. Where was I from, really? Why was I here? I remember that I pictured the stars in the universe and the feeling of such mystery and such a large unknown swallowed me. I was simply without any answers.
That experience has not left me. Every once in awhile, I still get overwhelmed with the mystery of my existence. But now I like to think of these experiences as glimpses of the Trinity.
I believe that the Trinity is the highest conception of God that the human mind can fathom. It is the least inadequate way of referring to God. It was revealed to us by Jesus, who told us to go forth and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The Trinity tells us some essential aspects about God. It tells us that God cannot be understood. The notion that three persons could be one person and one could be three is simply not logical. It makes no sense! And that is the point. We cannot and must not ever think that we can understand God. If we think that we have grasped God, then whatever we are conceiving of is not God at all, but something that we have made up. The Trinity is God’s way of saying to us. “Give up on understanding me. I am Mystery.”
The Trinity also tells us that God is never lonely. God did not create humankind because God was experiencing some kind of loneliness. God has all love and all companionship within the divine self. We were made simply for the joy of it, as play.
Thirdly, the Trinity tells us that God is dynamic. God moves. God dances. The three persons of the Trinity are in an eternal dance of love and intimacy that we cannot even begin to contemplate. And when we love one another, that is when we live into the fullness of the image of God.
I myself am so grateful for the Trinity. It is a way of naming that crazy thing that happened to me in front of the mirror in the bathroom when I was nine. It is a way of naming God so that I can love God while always being reminded that I can never fully understand God.
To truly honor the Trinity is to give up on all fundamentalism. For we cannot war with one another about who is right about God if God is beyond our comprehension. When it comes to God, we cannot even begin to define the Mystery. We are to remain open and in awe, always listening and always respecting. For none of us have all the answers.
