Friday, 26 July, 2002

The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.



TRINITY

For Christians, the Trinity is the primary symbol of a community that holds together by containing diversity within itself. Another symbol of a unity that is not uniform might be the Bible itself, with its two creations accounts in the Book of Genesis, and the four gospels, each with a strikingly different approach to telling the story of Jesus and his ministry. Church historians such as Margaret Miles point out that "Christianity is, and historically has been, pluralistic in beliefs, creeds, and liturgical and devotional practices in different geographical settings as well as over the 2,000 years of its existence." The wonder is that this flexibility and diversity has often been considered more of an embarrassment than celebrated as one of the religion's strengths.



Norris spends much of this chapter talking about metaphors and sharing how the children in her classroom once "took off" on a project that dealt with using poetic imagery to look at the world with new eyes. We must not be afraid to speak in metaphors and to realize the power and truthfulness that is present when metaphors are used to tell us the most about that we tend to know so little. This week while reading about the councils in the early church, one author wrote about how the creeds - dealing with Father - Son -Holy Spirit - don't say it all. But it is a beginning. For their time, the creeds dealt with some of the very divisive parts of the church and yet, there is so much that is not said...so much room to bow and bend...and be one church within the tension of our diversity.



Connection: Hear any great metaphors today? Have any mysteries begin to take on some clarity and yet not be completely contained and answered? The followers of Jesus are a cadre of people living within such a truthfulness each day we often don't have the language to spell it out...it's like...



Praise be to you O God for you are more than what we can see and yet you invited us into the grandest visions of our life. Let your Spirit give us the vision to see your blessed reign in many ways as it breaks in within this day. Amen