Trinity

The Trinity… One of those things that befuddles us. We ponder it, muse on it, try to wrap our heads around it… and usually come out the other end saying “ah, it’s a mystery”. How can you have three persons and one being?? How can you have three in one??? St. Patrick has his famous cloverleaf example… We have other things… Father, Son and Holy Spirit… Creator, Created, Creating… Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier… Lover, Loved, Love… Does that help you to wrap your head around it?? I don’t know if it helps me… I can understand why the Muslims and Jews sometimes wonder if we’re not polytheistic, worshipping three gods and not one God.


I’ve been mulling over this reflection for the better part of 4 weeks! I keep reading the readings and then figure I’ll let it sit for a bit and let it settle… Who signed up for this May 30 posting anyhow I wonder!! Ah right… it was me… Or at least a part of me… There’s another part of me that is resisting it fiercely… Which is a connection of sorts to the Trinity…

This is what helps me… We are created in the image and likeness of God, yes? Yes… And we can agree that God is a communion, a community of relationship, yes? Yes… Well, so are we… Take a look at you… There’s you… but you isn’t just “you”… You is composed of your body… your mind… and your spirit or soul… We have a Trinitarian quality to ourselves, don’t you think? And we’re always in relationship with ourselves… There’s a relationship between our spirit and our mind… between our mind and our body… between our spirit and our body. We’re one being… but we have different facets to ourselves… There’s our mind that sort of gets ideas, gets things going… There’s our body that puts a lot of it into action… There’s our spirit our soul, guiding the whole process, infusing everything with that unique flair that is ours…

And I get that this is an imperfect analogy… But most of our analogies are imperfect! We’re trying to understand the infinite through the finite. The analogy (this one or any other) can only take us so far… but it’s something helps us to get another angle on it…

Unlike the Trinity though… our internal relationships aren’t always the greatest. Our relationship with our body, for example, isn’t always the healthiest… Our mind doesn’t always follow our spiritual desires or quest. There isn’t always the clearest communication happening… but… if you step back and squint a bit… you can see it, sort of…

And it gives me a sense of what it could look like… What would our lives look like if we lived purely out of love… love for ourselves… if love was the bond that united our body, our mind and our spirit… And if that love extended outwards, beyond ourselves, to everyone else who is also part of the divine plan, part of the divine Trinitarian love? Me thinks it would look pretty good...

Eat, Pray, Love

I've reading the Eat Pray Love book by Elizabeth Gilbert right now... I've seen it be a best seller for months now and finally decided it might be time to give it a try. It's actually a great read... She is a talented writer who can draw connections between very disparate things. I've finished the Eat section (her 4 months in Italy), the Pray section (her 4 months in an ashram in India) and am now in the Love section (her months in Indonesia)... I especially connected with her section on India... although I did feel my taste buds start oozing while reading the Italy section. She seems to have a love affair with pasta! And Italy in general... The India section though was very revealing... her time in the Ashram... her struggle with meditation... her ideas on the divine and our place in it... All of it jiving with what I've been reading elsewhere... and my own sense of our role in the universe. It's nice to see it coming from so many different directions!

Stuck... in other ways...

As I was reading the Stuck book (which is, incidentally, over now)... I was thinking of how when someone is drowning... or thinks they're drowning... or just thinks of thinking that they are drowning... that they reach out to anyone who swims by, desperate to keep their head above water and find something to hold onto, something solid. Not very good for the person swimming by however! I've heard of stories where the people swimming by have to fight off the drowning (or thinking they are drowning) person in order to keep their own heads above water...

And it doesn't just happen in the water... We attach ourselves to people like leeches sometimes, because they have something that we want... security, balance, joy, energy... And we try to suck it out of them, desperate to save our lives... at the expense of theirs... It's sort of a modern day Count Dracula thing... Vampires do exist!! They're just energy vampires... or joy vampires... or attention vampires... The trouble is... we all have the power to create our own energy and joy and attention and love... We just take the easy way out sometimes, and figure it's easier to suck it out of others than create it ourselves... That's a pretty cheap way to live life... and dishonest... and a lie...

How do you go through life? Creating energy and sharing it with others... or sucking other people dry?

Stuck... on Work

This is another good chapter, but again, I think it could have been beefed up a bit. There's a lot about being stuck on looking for the perfect job. But... what about being stuck to work, like a workaholic? We become stuck on an idyllic view of what the perfect job for us would be... lots of money, fame, etc. And the reality doesn't always match that image. And we get stuck thinking we're in a dead-end job or a dead-end career. But what do we really want from work? Do we expect too much? From it or from ourselves? Maybe we'd be happiest working as a janitor... But we think we need to be an engineer and we're just not suited for it... What is it that really makes us happy? What is it that gives us joy? And how much do we really need to live off of?

I thought it was a good book... it got me to see how stuck we can be... and not even realize it... which is the worst stuck of all! Cultures, religions and communities can be stuck too... It's just a good thing I think to take a look around and see what we are stuck on... or who!

Stuck... on People

This one seems pretty self-explanatory. We get stuck on people... stuck in hoping, believing, thinking that they will move our lives forward. Or maybe we're just too afraid to move on from relationships that are well and truly stuck. Or maybe we keep looking for the rainbow over the next hill, always jumping from relationship to relationship. Hopping around like a bean in a hot pan is just as stuck as being rooted in one place. Stuck comes in a lot of different forms. I actually thought, the author could have beefed up this chapter a bit more... because there are lots of ways in which we become stuck on people. We think that they have the answer to our problems. We want what they have, whether it's a joy for life, or energy, or stability or balance. We cling to them like a drowning swimmer... Not a nice picture... What would it take for each of us to realize that we are the ones... and the only ones... who can create joy in our life... or energy... or stability... or balance. It can't come from outside us. Sucking it out of others does nothing for us, other than create a stuckness... a new sort of addiction, that is really a choice at the end of the game... and a selfish choice too...

Stuck... on Trauma

This was an interesting chapter and it does make a lot of sense. People get stuck on something horrible that happened to them back in the past, and they relive it and replay it until it becomes a legend. Nowadays with all these talk shows and TV therapists, we focus a lot on the story of the victim, encouraging the victim to tell their story over and over again, to the point that they become identified with their story. And that is stuck. Back in the olden days... like before the 20th century, people also had horrible things happen, but they just got on with life. They moved on. Nowadays, we don't move on... we get so stuck in the past, and in the trauma, that we don't live life anymore. And... those of us who haven't had trauma begin to feel let out! And so we look for something that might qualify... and take it to therapy and make a molehill into a mountain. What's the point of being stuck on trauma? Get on with it... live life... You're only as stuck as you think you are. Whatever we think about, we give energy to... So, think about your trauma if you want, but realize it's keeping you ever more stuck...

Stuck... In Habits

Oooh... this was a good chapter! So, we all have habits, good and bad, right? Things that we end up doing almost automatically. But we know that we have a choice, right? We know that we can choose to brush our teeth after meals and floss regularly... but sometiems we choose to do it... and sometimes we choose not to...

Anneli (the author) suggests the radical notion that addictions are not diseases... they are the result of poor choices... ongoing poor choices... When people say things like "I was drunk, I'm an alcoholic, I have a disease, I couldn't control myself"... they are basically abdicating all responsibility for their actions. They are saying that they are weak, powerless in the face of this habit. Anneli would say that's all it is... a habit... and a poor choice... The last in a long line of poor choices... Same with over-eating. Same with gambling. Same with video game playing. Same with overspending. Somewhere along the line, through repetivie behaviour, we've created a habit through choice and ended up calling it a disease...She says that these bad habits fill holes in our lives... in our souls... in our days...

What about admitting that we are spoiled, selfish, weak, lazy... Nah, that's too hard!! That makes us take too much of a look at ourselves! Better to foist it off of us onto something else... Yeah, let's call ourselves "sick"... we have a "disease"... so it's not our fault! Someone says they're a pedophile because they were abused and so it's not their fault. They have a sickness... Uh-huh... right...

They talk about Alcohol-Induced Anxiety Disorder... like it's a legitimate disease... Why not have the Caffeine-Induced Anxiety Disorder?? How about the Twinkie Defense when Dan White killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk? "I ate too much sugar and couldn't premeditate the crime." Uh-huh...Guess who profits from our habits turned addictions turned disease?? Drug companies... that's who...And all those advertisers who convince us that we need this or that... or this and that... in order to be happy...

Who has the power to transform our lives? We do... But we can give up the power... each and every moment... I know people who quite drinking from one day to the next... No AA, no therapy... just the choice... Maybe some of us have stronger will-power than others? Or maybe some of us just make poor choice ongoingly, never having been taught that we DO have a choice... all the time!!

Anneli makes a distinction between "I can't" and "I won't".... As in "I can't give up drinking"... Let's put you on a desert island and see whether it's "I can't"...  She doesn't pull her punches this author... Maybe it's too much for some people... Makes sense to me though...

Stuck... In the Present

Eh? How can we be stuck in the present??? Good question I thought! Well... the idea of instant gratification. The idea that we can have everything and anything... right NOW! Let's buy that car right NOW! Let's buy that house right NOW!... Never-mind that we don't have the resources or the cash. Let's just get another credit card right NOW... and worry about the consequences later... With no thought to the future... No thought to what the consequences might be. Let's just get drunk now... or binge eat now... or stop exercising now... Our kids are being raised in an era of instanteous gratification... We are teaching them to think that everything can come right NOW... with no effort... no fuss no muss no work... Go figure...

There's a show on Slice called "Till Debt do us Part" and it epitomizes the up and coming generation of urbanites who are stuck in the now. These couoples (mostly 20 or 30 somethings) are stuck in the present. They have all the gadgets and toys and are $60,000 in debt, overspending by $6000 each month. In 5 years, they will be $800,000 in debt! But in their myopic view of the "NOW"... they can't see that, until the host of the show rubs their noses in it and shows them the future...

Sure, sure... living in the present is a great thing for meditation... but if you don't plan your day or where your next meal will come from or how you'll heat your home this winter... you won't be in the present much... you'll be in the past (starved or frozen to death). Even Buddhist monks who live in the present/now, have neighbouring communities who plan for their future. You don't! So, don't abdicate your responsibility to create a future for yourself...

As a society, we live in an environmental NOW that is fast becoming something that is way past sustainability... If we keep ignoring the future to focus on the now... Well... take a look at the carrier pigeons, the do-do birds, the plains bison...

Stuck... In the Past

In the present... and stuck in the past... always facing the past, filled with regrets and lingering doubts... or perhaps filled with nostalgia for a gone-by era, a golden time when things were so much better than they are now. All of that is stuck in the past...

We, as individuals can be stuck in the past, reliving past glories, reliving past shame, running back and forth between the past and the present... To the extent that we drag the past into the present and end up reliving the same moments over and over again. We become out of touch with the present, always looking at the world through "past-coloured" glasses, never seeing what is, but what was....

Cultures, groups, communities can be stuck in the past again. People in the church who long for the by-gone era of the Tridentine Mass... people who renact the age of the Vikings because they want to be warriors... People who think that hunter-gatherers from 20,000 years ago were the real utopia and we need to go back to that... All of them looking to the past for something that is gone, never to be recreated.

Where do you live your live? Longing for the past? Reliving the past? Shunning the past, but always turned towards it?