Trinity
Wow. Lots of days and lots of stuff. Lots of end of year happenings. Monte preached and we did music for 3 services last weekend. It's all been good. Last night about 20 gals for an end of year MOPS Pass the Hat were at our house. I thought I'd be planting in my veggie garden today, but I'm vegging out on my beautiful deck surrounded by birds, flowers and beautiful weather. For many reasons, I'm tired. Been reading and listening to the radio.
Last weekend was our Pentecost Day. How many churches acknowledge this day and celebrate the Holy Spirit? This coming Sunday is called Trinity Sunday. Pentecost is the 7th Sunday after Easter (I counted the 50 days of Omer from Easter to Pentecost, in anticipation of God's presence in my everyday). Trinity Sunday completes the octave.
One year I made a clay sculpture of the Tower of Babel. I was wanting to remember how the tongues got babbled causing disruption and lack of communication. Remembering too, how we often try and build stairways to paradise. But with Pentecost came the redemptive gift of tongues - the ability to hear and speak and understand through God's love.
Trinity Sunday wasn't added to the calendar for quite awhile. As Orthodox Jews growing up and ingrained with, there is "One God" and he's a jealous God, Jesus' claims to "I and the Father are one ... I in Him as He is in Me" were blasphemous. The Apostle Paul had to deal with this issue. He had to take a history of a Tribe and enlarge it for the whole world. Arianism was alive and well for centuries dealing with the divinity of Christ. And then to add to the mess the Holy Spirit?!!!!
3 persons in One God is quite a mystery! It's represented in nature in so many ways. Like a harmonic chord, 3 notes playing at the same time but forming one sound. Just as the Trinity is a communal interrelationship, a family, so too are we in the Church. God is not isolated and neither are we to be. (Christianity is not an individualistic thing, or should I say 'rugged individualism'?)
I was pondering this idea of communal interrelationship I've come to love, and need, in my local church. Was thinking about what this really means. It's way beyond friendship (and even those I'm not especially friends with, or should I say, 'dislike'). It's God's image in everyone. Alone, I'm just one piece of His image. But in everyone else I see all the other pieces of the image of God. Whether good or the distorted good. (This is another of my ponderings: that all evil is just distortion of good. That desires are good, but those obviously bad, are just distortions of what's good.)
It's a great time to remember the "Gifts of the Spirit" and the "Fruit of the Spirit". It's the birthday of the Church. The Spirit transforms and imbues with meaning what has gone flat and tedious. (Living "by the flesh" is a life which does not know its meaning.) The Spirit gives the ordinary a fuller dimension - the every-day recreated in an extraordinary way (should I say like water made into wine?).
I started off with saying I was tired. But now I'm rejuvinated. All the fruit that's been gobbled up lately is being renewed (to be gobbled up again and renewed again...). Thank You God!!!!!!
God is still taking on flesh today expanding the Incarnation. The God above became the God alongside and now the God within. This is WILD!!!
"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who yu are. It means you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me."
- Frederick Buechner
Last weekend was our Pentecost Day. How many churches acknowledge this day and celebrate the Holy Spirit? This coming Sunday is called Trinity Sunday. Pentecost is the 7th Sunday after Easter (I counted the 50 days of Omer from Easter to Pentecost, in anticipation of God's presence in my everyday). Trinity Sunday completes the octave.
One year I made a clay sculpture of the Tower of Babel. I was wanting to remember how the tongues got babbled causing disruption and lack of communication. Remembering too, how we often try and build stairways to paradise. But with Pentecost came the redemptive gift of tongues - the ability to hear and speak and understand through God's love.
Trinity Sunday wasn't added to the calendar for quite awhile. As Orthodox Jews growing up and ingrained with, there is "One God" and he's a jealous God, Jesus' claims to "I and the Father are one ... I in Him as He is in Me" were blasphemous. The Apostle Paul had to deal with this issue. He had to take a history of a Tribe and enlarge it for the whole world. Arianism was alive and well for centuries dealing with the divinity of Christ. And then to add to the mess the Holy Spirit?!!!!
3 persons in One God is quite a mystery! It's represented in nature in so many ways. Like a harmonic chord, 3 notes playing at the same time but forming one sound. Just as the Trinity is a communal interrelationship, a family, so too are we in the Church. God is not isolated and neither are we to be. (Christianity is not an individualistic thing, or should I say 'rugged individualism'?)
I was pondering this idea of communal interrelationship I've come to love, and need, in my local church. Was thinking about what this really means. It's way beyond friendship (and even those I'm not especially friends with, or should I say, 'dislike'). It's God's image in everyone. Alone, I'm just one piece of His image. But in everyone else I see all the other pieces of the image of God. Whether good or the distorted good. (This is another of my ponderings: that all evil is just distortion of good. That desires are good, but those obviously bad, are just distortions of what's good.)
It's a great time to remember the "Gifts of the Spirit" and the "Fruit of the Spirit". It's the birthday of the Church. The Spirit transforms and imbues with meaning what has gone flat and tedious. (Living "by the flesh" is a life which does not know its meaning.) The Spirit gives the ordinary a fuller dimension - the every-day recreated in an extraordinary way (should I say like water made into wine?).
I started off with saying I was tired. But now I'm rejuvinated. All the fruit that's been gobbled up lately is being renewed (to be gobbled up again and renewed again...). Thank You God!!!!!!
God is still taking on flesh today expanding the Incarnation. The God above became the God alongside and now the God within. This is WILD!!!
"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who yu are. It means you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me."
- Frederick Buechner