Thoughts on the Trinity

by Nancy Jago Finley

My Irish aunties were wonderfully superstitious. They knew that good things (and bad) come in sets of three. They were first generation Americans and kept to the “old ways” from Ireland which I now see as a delightful mix of Roman Catholicism, Celtic mysticism, and folk wisdom. I suppose I can attribute my appreciation for Trinitarian theology to them. It forms the foundation of my belief in God and without it I don’t think my faith would stand up very well. The more I learn about the Trinity, the more my appreciation of it deepens and broadens so that now it is informing my understanding of what it means to be human.

God, the Father as ALEPH

The first word of the Torah – BERE’SHIT – starts with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. As I understand it, this is intentional as the first letter – ALEPH – represents the uncreated Creator, the eternal One whose energy is timeless and beyond measure. ALEPH is the silent letter that symbolizes the silence of Spirit from which all sound flows. In ALEPH lies the potential for all that has been, is, and will be.

God, the Son as BET

The name of the Hebrew letter BET means house. BET ALEPH means home for the Spirit. Creation is where we, as part of creation, are home for the Spirit. My interpretation of Bet Aleph points to the embodiment of the Divine in all that is. Matter matters. As Christians, we look to the model of Jesus to help us understand God’s presence in the human experience. The embodied world becomes the medium through which we search for and hopefully experience God.

God, the Holy Spirit

Without energy, the creator and the created are dull, dead, frozen. The Holy Spirit represented by the Chinese letter for “chi” at left symbolizes the energizing force that surges through all of creation binding it with the creator and with itself. We are alive and in communion with each other and with the creator because of Spirit. As Christians, we regard Love as the force that unites, allowing us to realize that everything is connected with everything else. Being is also dependent on movement and change.

So, the Trinitarian model reveals God as uncontainable but at the same time the container, the contained, and that which enlivens and is the source of the unifying power of Love. God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

IMAGO DEI

The Creation story in Genesis tells us that humans were made in God’s image. So, if God has three aspects, then so do we. We have the capacity to recognize that we contain and are contained by the ultimate mystery of God “the Father.” We also are able to allow our sense organs to become God detectors by our interactions with other elements of creation. And we have the capacity for enormous love of God, each other, and all of Creation. I believe that our goal as humans is to allow these three Holy aspects of ourselves to be experienced in balance.

LOSING OUR FOOTING ON THE GROUND OF BEING

Many of us tend to ignore the 1st “person” of the Trinity, God “the Father.” To the degree that our attention is absorbed by the material world, our awe of the Holy Mystery is diminished. As our awe diminishes, we can become inflated with pride at our God-like qualities. When our egos become so inflated with the idea that we are God-like, then we may begin to believe that we are Gods! We might believe we’re in control and that we don’t need to humble ourselves to any power greater than ourselves.

Further, when we act on the belief that we humans are like Gods but that the rest of Creation is not, then we set ourselves up for participating in many ecological evils. Abuse of animals and other growing things, water, sky, and land are consequences of anthropocentrism. Add to our excessive pride the cultural ideal of individualism at the expense of collectivism, the scale becomes even more unbalanced. We lose sight of our place in nature.

THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND

Ego inflation is one danger of an overblown 2nd “person.” Ego alienation is another. Both are consequences of imbalance. If we become alienated from the Divine within us and from one another, the 3rd “person” of the Trinity is stifled. The Holy wind dies down to stillness. The “third person” of the Trinity can also become obscured when we refuse to die and be reborn. The Holy Spirit is fluidity itself, the antithesis of stagnation. If we stubbornly hang on to a rigid idea of the Holy and of Truth, including truth about ourselves, we knock the wind right out of us! And when the movement of Spirit is inhibited, habits of the heart, mind, and body take root and our suffocation is usually so slow and insidious that we aren’t even aware of how stuck we’ve become. The nature of Spirit is to move in freedom.

THE FORCE IS WITH US

This snapshot of my current understanding of God and Humankind suggests that we are vulnerable to ego inflation as well as ego alienation when our Trinitarian nature is out of balance. If we think we’ve got God figured out and become so fascinated by our own powers of knowing, we become inflated and the grace that flows out of humility is diminished. On the other hand, if we become alienated from God and/or our God-Selves, we may become dispirited and feel like we’re all alone in a stagnant pond. It’s our freedom exercised in humility that allows us to receive God’s self communication in Truth and Love. The three aspects of God within each of us are in dynamic and life giving tension. This tension provides the energy to fuel our ongoing journey to know Truth and Love in our relationships with God and with others while gracefully adapting to change. Even though we might be unbalanced, God is not. God is like a gravitational force that attempts to pull us back into balance and closer to God. Seeking, receiving, and maintaining that balance is our ultimate spiritual challenge, both individually and collectively.



Nancy Finley is a long time member of St. Paul’s and is currently a graduate student at Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry studying to be a spiritual director. She also is on the faculty at North Seattle Community College and teaches lifespan developmental psychology online. Her course website is: here.

A Report from the Press Conference with the PB at St. Paul's

by Robin Allan Jones

Our presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is known for her remarkable achievements and her formidable intellect. In person, she wins you over in a very few seconds with her quiet alto voice. She spoke at St. Paul’s Episcopal in Seattle for a press conference she held on Friday, April 11, on her way to an environmental event at the Seattle Sculpture Garden. The reason for her visit had to do with the environment, but most of the questions put to her really had to do with leadership, and on that she spoke eloquently.

In response, for example, to one of the first questions posed, she said that she hoped Episcopalians would rise to leadership in saving in the environment because we are called to leadership by our baptisms.

Leadership is sometimes revealed in the ability to grasp the essence of a problem. St. Paul’s parishioner Mark Taylor asked the Presiding Bishop to respond to an assertion voiced by one of his professional colleagues that environmental activism is not really the concern of people of color. Bishop Schori’s response was, simply, that first of all, the environment is very much the concern of Native Americans and always has been, and, moreover, by the best evidence, the impact of pollution is and will be felt disproportionately by people of color.

Bishop Schori was trained as an oceanographer, and she points out that the ocean cannot be studied in isolation. Neither, really, can people and the fulfillment of their needs be apprehended except by consideration of humanity as a body. When part of the body of Christ suffers, she reminded us, we all suffer. Certainly that applies when considering the impact of our industry and technology on the environment and our fellow human beings, and it also applies as we deal with some of the storms besetting our church. While on one hand, the church in general and we at St. Paul’s in particular are upholders of cherished traditions, we find ourselves re-examining what the church means to society as a whole, and Bishop Schori pointed out that leadership is all about motivating change; it’s rarely about staying where you are.

I’m afraid the arrival and presence of our presiding bishop was perhaps overshadowed that day by that of the Dalai Lama, and as press conferences go, this one may have lacked the drama that goes when a political office finds itself under fire. But under the high-peaked roof of our little church, won over by this alto voice that speaks of listening, I found myself wishing it weren’t a press conference at all but a Eucharist, that all of us, under the rain-dappled skylights, could just take communion together.

Robin Allan Jones is a stagehand, scenic artist, and theatrical designer in Seattle. A member of St. Paul’s since 2005, he serves the parish as a liturgical minister and as co-director of The Umbrella Theater at St. Paul's.

FYI - Sharon Cumberland Readings in May

Sharon Cumberland is giving two readings in the month of May:

Seattle University Writer’s Reading Series
Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 7:00PM
Campion Chapel, Seattle University
with volunteers from the Seattle University Choir

Jack Straw Writers in Residence Series
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 7:30
4261 Roosevelt Way, Seattle 98105
with fellow writers in residence
Judith Skillman, Michael Spence, and Rebecca Hoogs



Thursday, May 8th at 7:00 in Campion Chapel in Campion Tower at Seattle University: I will read new work, including a chanted plainsong poem,“The Death of Thomas Merton,” to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Merton’s death. The main attraction will be a plainsong for multiple voices entitled “Holy Innocents,” commissioned by choir director Joy Sherman, and chanted by volunteers from the Seattle University Choir. Free admission. There will be a reception following. For the link to directions to the chapel in Campion Tower (the chapel is in the lobby of the dorm) click here.


Thursday, May 29th at 7:30 at the Jack Straw Studios on Roosevelt Way: As a Jack Straw Writer in Residence for 2008, I will perform with fellow writers in residence. I was selected for a plainsong project, so I will chant as well as read. The Jack Straw Writers Anthology in which my work appears will be given out free at the reading ($5.00 suggested admission). For directions click here.


Please email me at slc@seattleu.edu if you have any question. I hope to see you in the month of May!

Sharon Cumberland is a member of St. Paul's and an Associate Professor of English at Seattle University.

What’s with all the incense?

by Samuel Torvend

As we were finishing the entrance hymn on Easter Sunday, my sister, her husband, and their five-year-old son slipped into the pew next to me. My nephew, Rex, stood on the pew so that he could see his friend, Stephen, twirling the thurible, the metal container filled with a burning coal and heaped with incense pebbles. “I can see the smoke,” whispered Rex, “but, Uncle Sam, where’s the fire that makes it?” Well, this was a great question from a curious soon-to-be kindergartner. If there’s smoke, there must be fire. I whispered in his ear that a coal, much like one of his father’s barbeque briquettes, is set on fire with a match that makes it sizzle and turn into a hot ember. The incense that is added to the coal creates both the smoke and the smell. His eyes widened and he said, “Oh, that is way cool … and it doesn’t fly out and hit us.”

While his son found the use of incense fascinating if not wonderfully dangerous, Frank, his father, seemed less impressed. At dinner that afternoon he said: “You all at St. Paul’s really like to do it up big; you know: lots of ceremony.” Let’s be clear: there was no condescending tone in his voice, but I did wonder, Does he think it’s just silly: the bowing, the genuflecting, and, then, those many clouds of Easter incense? And then he asked, “I thought it had something to do with your prayers rising to God … Isn’t that right?” Big point to Frank who could have been quoting Psalm 141: “Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice.” On smoke rising from burning incense as symbol of prayer “rising” to God, he was right on the money.

And yet at St. Paul’s on this Easter Sunday, the altar table, the bread and wine, a newly-baptized baby, the Easter candle, the worshipping assembly and the ministers of the Mass were all incensed. Why all that incensing of food, candle, and people? The answer rests in the ancient past of Christianity. It was not until the fourth century that Christians began to incense people and significant objects in their worship. While one reads in the Bible of incense being burned during worship, the practice of incensing people probably derives from the Roman imperial practice of honoring political elites, such as the emperor and his court, with burning incense. Where you see and smell incense, a bigwig is not far behind. Oh, but here is the interesting twist that begins to take place in Christian worship: the pagan imperial practice of using incense was welcomed by Christians but turned on its head: what honored only the elites who sat at the top of the social pyramid was now turned toward ordinary people and ordinary things. Infants, deacons, women, widows, priests, the poor, men, children – anyone and everyone who enters into the Christian assembly is honored with a practice that had been reserved only for social VIPs. In essence the Christian practice proclaimed that each and every person was worthy – worthy to be honored with incense – since each one is a child of God, marked with an eternal dignity, and joined to the body of Christ, the great high priest. Thus, the incensing of all the people, their table, and the food they receive as the Body and Blood of Christ would now proclaim a status-reversal: all these – not just a few – but all these are holy. And so, here, in this place, each person is to be honored with fire and fragrance at one’s birth into the Christian community (baptism), as one is nourished weekly in the Christian communion (Eucharist), and at one’s death in the midst of the community (the Christian funeral).

I would agree with my nephew: that is way cool.

Samuel Torvend is a member of St. Paul's and professor of the history of Christianity at Pacific Lutheran University.

The Umbrella Theatre Company at St. Paul's

I am proud to direct your attention to a new St. Paul's affiliated blog, Umbrella Theatre Company. Umbrella Theatre is the drama group at St. Paul's and has quite a few delicious projects going on at the moment, the next one being a puppet show at our Spring Family Potluck on April 19th.

A short description:

Well, folks, as everyone knows, it’s the Year of the Mouse, and here at St. Paul’s we don’t take that lightly. On the afternoon of April 19, as part of the Godly Play Potluck, the Paramouse Players, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Umbrella Players, will perform their first one-act play—well, actually, it’s only half an act, but there’s nothing half-act about these rodents. They’ll be performing Creation, an original retelling of Aesop’s fable, The Belling of the Cat, combined with the Bible story of Creation. It’s a clever mouse tale that the whole family will enjoy, parents and rugrats alike.

For more info and photos of the puppet players, head over to the Umbrella Theatre Blog. See you at the show!

Rebirth

by Auntmama

Mary Anne Moorman

Mama and I were diametrically opposed on most things Easter. Spring tumbled over itself in fields of warm sun made for play but mama had clothes to sew, decorations to make, new recipes to conquer. I had balls to throw, baby rabbits to watch, new clover to string into halos. I was everything outside. Mama was everything in. But we met in the middle when it came to the egg and found forgiveness over a rabbit.

Nothing says new life like an egg. Mama drilled us on redemption during Lent but when Palm Sunday came it was all about life. Right after we stored the palms from the annual pageant we raced home to begin egg production. All week Daddy brought home dozens and dozens of eggs from the railroad commissary.

Mama sorted them for baking, boiling and blowing. We spent the rest of Palm Sunday, blowing. Mama took her favorite long sewing needle and poked a tiny hole in each end of the egg. Then just like she was blowing bubbles, she’d squich up her lips and begin to blow.

She’d puff the tiniest little pillows of air into the hole and hope the contents would slip out the other end. This was tricky and it sometimes took a few eggs to get it right. Daddy’s job was to cheer her on when an egg cracked and all the goo ran over her finger like melted butter.

“Its okay honey, they’re perfect for scrambling,” he’d say and pick shells out of Monday’s breakfast. My brothers tied circles of green ribbon to hang the finished egg and mixed the paints.
We used all kinds of coloring on account of brother Shack’s artistic pursuits. Whatever he was painting with wound up on these eggs. This was mama art.

The colors had to be festive and bright , for mama’s egg tree. We could use anything we wanted on our boiled eggs. Those were for the egg rolling contest and the Easter egg hunt. They’d be broken in minutes. But the tree was different.

The tree was like mama’s own thank you to Jesus. Mama blew until she had about two dozen clean white, empty shells all laid out like a canvas. Then she’d dip her dime store brush into water colors, or food dye or even oils if Shack had any, and paint the most marvelous eggs.

By suppertime the kitchen table was a gallery of spring. There were crosses and lilies, faces of the main characters, and baby lambs grazing on new grass. Eggs had to dry overnight but when we came down for scrambled breakfast, the beautiful eggs dangled from their green ribbons on a stick tree.

The exquisite hand painted eggs guarded our front door and welcomed us home as the tension mounted during Easter week. Mama baked every day and sewed. She was determined her children would each wear something new for Easter Sunday even if it meant she had to stay up till dawn sewing a blouse or a new shirt or dress. One Easter she made me a yellow and gray striped suit.
The stripes were hard to match and I had to stand still forever for fittings.. Mama raced the clock on Saturday to finish my skirt hem.

“Mama, it is straight enough,” I’d whine. Mama pinned and tucked while I fidgeted in front of the egg tree.

”Which is your favorite egg,” she asked to distract me. This had gone on for a week and I was tired of egg stories.

“Mama the boys don’t have to come inside and get pinned up,” I complained until she’d finally beg me to hold still before she turned me into the pin cushion.”


I could not stand still. I did not want to stand still and I did not understand why my Lord and Savior needed me wearing new clothes on Easter. Mama said it was the least I could do and told me about Judas as she knelt to re-pin the hem.. I knew she was exhausted. I knew she was just trying to do something for me but I was down to my last raw nerve.

I was about to explode when daddy opened the front door with A newborn brown bunny tucked in his jacket.

“Oh Daddy , daddy daddy let me see” I whirled around to pet this adorable creature and when I did, I smashed right into mama’s egg tree. Painted egg shells flew in all directions. A little lamb face crumbled on the floor.
Palm leaves mounted in crushed bits. Mama burst into tears as Virgin Mary shattered before us. Daddy mumbled unmentionables in my directions. The bunny ducked in fear.

I figured this disaster might prevent Peter Rabbit from leaving chocolates and got to sweeping right away. It was the least I could do for mama. Daddy tried to comfort mama and I scooted out to find the broom at lightening speed. Brothers opened the door to find me crying and sweeping and were so astounded they couldn’t even tease me. This was terrible. No one had ever broken the egg tree not even Ken with his eternal yoyo. They boys almost looked sympathetic as they made peanut butter sandwiches. Mama and Daddy and the rabbit disappeared. This was highly unusual as our parent hung over us most of the time.

As I was falling asleep and wondering if the Easter bunny would cancel his annual appearance, Mama slipped into my room. She had the new bunny in her arms and put him on the pillow. I was about to wail all my sorries to her but mama just gave me a huge hug and crawled in next to me and the bunny.

“It’s almost Easter,” she said “and forever more, we all get a new chance by light of day.”

Mary Anne Moorman is a regular attender of St. Paul's.

Christ in Salmon, Salmon in Christ

By Nancy Jago Finley

I rode into Christianity riding on the back of a salmon. It was the salmon’s life cycle that gave me a window into the Jesus story. It opened the door to the church. Here’s how it happened:

Many years ago I visited the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks here in Seattle to watch the salmon returning from the sea to their spawning grounds. They were eagerly going home to die for the sake of future generations. As I watched them struggling against the current, swimming upstream with great effort, I cried at the beauty of it. I learned that their dissolving corpses served as nourishment for the new life they had created just before they died. I made no connection to Jesus at the time as I was defiantly unchurched. Christianity wasn’t even on my radar.

About 10 years ago I cautiously approached the idea of institutional Christianity and took the sacramental bread and wine for the first time in maybe 30 years. I heard the stories about Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection and remembered the salmon. Soon I came to understand those stories as representing the same process revealed in the salmon life cycle. Jesus sacrificed his life as all living things do so that others may live. But, by dying, we become immortal. It’s part of the nature of things. Dead flowers and leaves become humus out of which new life emerges. We eat Jesus’ body and drink his blood to symbolically nourish us as we journey through our lives toward union with God.

Concerned that my equating Jesus with salmon might be considered irreverent or even heretical, I did not speak of this until attending a retreat on Celtic Christianity where I learned that the salmon is a symbol for Jesus among the Celts. I now proclaim that as embodied beings, Nature is where we encounter God.

Nancy Finley is a long time member of St. Paul’s and is currently a graduate student at Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry studying to be a spiritual director. She also is on the faculty at North Seattle Community College and teaches lifespan developmental psychology online. Her course website is: here.