If St. Augustine confessed that he didn't understand the concept of the Trinity, I don't profess to understand it. But maybe that is the problem. Trying to understand it. Two articles this week have helped me appreciate it, though. See The Rev. David Lose's "Trinity:Three-in-One, Plus One!" and Dan Clendenin's "Trinity, Mystery, and Mercy." Particularly poignant in this article are the characterizations of God from the "The Shack" by Paul Young. "What Young has written — and his critics are right about this point — is really a doctrine of God in story form. But it's no Athanasian Creed with technical abstractions. He pictures the trinitarian God who welcomes us back to the shack as El-ousia, "a large beaming African-American woman" (Father), a "small, distinctively Asian woman" named Sarayu who collects tears (the Spirit), and a Middle Eastern man dressed like a laborer (Jesus).The main character Mack discovers that God isn't like he thought. He's not the product of his projections, or the neat formulas of academic theology. He's perfectly good. He intends to heal and not humiliate us. Mack learns to trust him fully and believe that God is near. That's the good news on Trinity Sunday."
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