Image credit: Möbius Strip (detail), Photograph by David Benbennick, 2005.
"Trinity: Week 1"
"Summary: Sunday, February 26-Friday, March 3, 2017"
The Trinity is absolutely foundational to Christianity because it reveals the heart of the nature of God. And yet, as Karl Rahner pointed out, it has made almost no difference in the lives of the vast majority of Christians. (Sunday)
God is not the dancer but the dance itself! God is much more a dynamic verb than a static noun. God is constant flow. (Monday)
Instead of the idea of the Trinity being an abstruse conundrum, it could well end up being the answer to Western religion’s basic problem: we’ve been worshipping an image of God that is not the God of Jesus. (Tuesday)
Most of us begin with some notion of God as a Being, and then we discover through Jesus that such a Being is loving. The Trinitarian revelation instead starts with the nature of loving—and this is the very nature of being! (Wednesday)
Scientists and contemplatives alike are confirming that the foundational nature of reality is relational. (Thursday)
“The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that in God there is neither hierarchy nor inequality, neither division nor competition, but only unity in love amid diversity.” —Catherine LaCugna (Friday)
"Practice: Ecstatic Dance"
God cannot be known by thinking but by experiencing and loving. As you read about the theological framework and practical implications of Trinity, I hope you will take many opportunities to explore this concept in your lived experience.
Here’s one way you might play—with a childlike spirit—and feel Trinity’s flow in your body. You may even lose track of where you, the dancer, end and the dance itself begins.
Choose a favorite or new piece of music—classical, world, contemporary; anything that calls you to move!—and find a place in which you can listen and move without inhibition, barefooted if possible.
Allow your body to lead, following the invitation of the music. Let your mind take a back seat and tune in to the sensations of each part of your body.
Feel your feet connect with the ground. Let limbs and joints turn and bend as they will. Swing and sway your head, shoulders, hips. Sink deep into your body, remembering what it is to be a human animal.
Dance until you are pleasantly tired and then gradually slow your movements, perhaps to another musical tempo. Continue moving in smaller, gentler ways: breathe deeply, stretch your arms and legs, roll your head.
Come to a seated position and rest in stillness.
Gateway to Silence: God for us, God with us, God in us
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations (CAC: 2016), 51.
For Further Study:
Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: Exploring the Mystery of Trinity (CAC: 2004), CD, MP3 download
Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016)
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The spiritual seeker is a life-long student in the school of love. Join CAC’s self-paced, online courses for study, dialogue, and formation with others around the world.
BREATHING UNDER WATER: A Spiritual Study of the Twelve Steps
April 12–June 7, 2017
- IMMORTAL DIAMOND: A Study in Search of the True Self May 3–July 12, 2017
- Father Richard’s words and our interactions have opened my heart to a whole new approach to life. —AH, Pennsylvania
-------Copyright © 2017
Center for Action and Contemplation
1823 Five Points Road, SouthWest (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195, United States
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Friday, 3 March 2017: "Unity in Diversity" Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States In God there is neither hierarchy nor inequality.
Image credit: Möbius Strip (detail), Photograph by David Benbennick, 2005.
"Trinity: Week 1"
"Unity in Diversity"
Friday, March 3, 2017
In order to be vital and relevant, Christianity must be able to demonstrate a metaphysical core for spirituality and holiness—not merely a behavioral, psychological, or moral philosophy. A Trinitarian metaphysic, a philosophy of the nature of being, provides just such a vibrant and inherent foundation. Trinity is and must be our stable, rooted identity that does not come and go, rise and fall. This is the rock of salvation.
Trinity is rather perfectly mirrored in the three particles of every atom orbiting and cycling around one another—the basic physical building block of the universe. What happens if these atoms are intentionally destabilized? We have a bomb of death and destruction.
In many permutations that have led us to modern individualism, most Christians reversed the original Trinitarian use of the word person—as one who is a dynamic sounding-through—to an autonomous self that is separate and independent.
What would it look like to rebuild on a Trinitarian metaphysic and recreate a full and holistic personhood?
It would start by recognizing that each person is created by God as unique and irreplaceable—one to whom God has transferred and communicated God’s divine image in relationship, and who can, in turn, communicate and reflect that image to other created beings. That is true of each and every one of us. “I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me” (Matthew 25:40).
Most Christians have focused on overcoming the gap between Divine Personhood and human personhood. It largely became a matter of viewing sacraments as magical if you were Catholic or Orthodox or a transactional notion of strong belief or moral behavior if you were Protestant. In either case, there was no inherent capacity for divine union that could be evoked and built upon in our very soul. Thus, it was a very unstable core.
A Trinitarian metaphysic would allow us to create authentic community and unity in diversity and freedom. Look around you: God clearly loves diversity! It is only we who prefer uniformity. Diversity is created and maintained in Trinitarian love. In the beginning, the mystery of God’s goodness began flowing outward. God created things that create themselves in ever-new life forms.
Unity is diversity embraced, protected, and maintained by an infinitely generous love. It takes grace and love and the Spirit to achieve unity. Uniformity can be achieved by coercion, shame, and fear. Unfortunately, most churches have confused uniformity with true spiritual unity for centuries. But church formed in this way is by definition not the church. As Catherine LaCugna says, “The nature of the church should manifest the nature of God.” She writes:
The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that in God there is neither hierarchy nor inequality, neither division nor competition, but only unity in love amid diversity. The Christian community is the image or icon of the invisible God when its communitarian life mirrors the inclusivity of divine love. [1]
Gateway to Silence: God for us, God with us, God in usReferences:
[1] Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (HarperSanFrancisco: 1991), 403.
Adapted from Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 63-64, 75-76; and
The Divine Dance: Exploring the Mystery of Trinity, disc 2 (CAC: 2004), CD, MP3 download.
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The spiritual seeker is a life-long student in the school of love. Join CAC’s self-paced, online courses for study, dialogue, and formation with others around the world.
- BREATHING UNDER WATER: A Spiritual Study of the Twelve Steps
- April 12–June 7, 2017
- IMMORTAL DIAMOND: A Study in Search of the True Self
- May 3–July 12, 2017
- Father Richard’s words and our interactions have opened my heart to a whole new approach to life. —AH, Pennsylvania
Scholarships are available. Learn more and register at cac.org/online-ed/course-catalog/.
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Copyright © 2017
Center for Action and Contemplation
1823 Five Points Road, SouthWest (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mixico 87195, United States
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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for Thursday, 2 March 2017: "Inner and Outer Worlds Converge" Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States The foundational nature of reality is relational.
Image credit: Möbius Strip (detail), Photograph by David Benbennick, 2005.
"Trinity: Week 1"
"Inner and Outer Worlds Converge"
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Everything came forth from the divine dance that is the Trinity. Our new appreciation of Trinity is giving us a new grounding for interfaith understanding. It’s giving us a marvelous new basis for appreciating how this mystery is embedded as the code, not just in our religious constructs, but also in everything that exists. Creation bears a “family resemblance” to the Creator.
If there is only one creator God, and if there is one core pattern to this God, then we can expect to find that pattern everywhere else too. One reason so many theologians are interested in Trinity right now is that the scientific understanding of everything from atoms to galaxies to organisms is affirming our Trinitarian intuitions. We can now use the old Trinitarian language with a whole new level of appreciation.
The deepest intuition of our poets, mystics, and Holy Writ are aligning with findings on the leading edges of science and empirical discovery. When inner and outer worlds converge like this, something beautiful is afoot—the reversal of a centuries-long lovers’ quarrel between science and spirituality, mind and heart.
Atomic scientists looking through microscopes and astrophysicists looking through telescopes are seeing a similarity of pattern: everything is in relationship with everything else. Scientists and contemplatives alike are confirming that the foundational nature of reality is relational, and everything is indeed a holon, a part that replicates and mimics the whole.
Gateway to Silence: God for us, God with us, God in us
References:
Adapted from Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016), 69; and
The Divine Dance: Exploring the Mystery of Trinity, disc 1 (CAC: 2004), CD, MP3 download.
-------
The spiritual seeker is a life-long student in the school of love. Join CAC’s self-paced, online courses for study, dialogue, and formation with others around the world.
- BREATHING UNDER WATER: A Spiritual Study of the Twelve Steps
- April 12–June 7, 2017
- IMMORTAL DIAMOND: A Study in Search of the True Self
- May 3–July 12, 2017
- Father Richard’s words and our interactions have opened my heart to a whole new approach to life. —AH, Pennsylvania
-------
Copyright © 2017
Center for Action and Contemplation
1823 Five Points Road, SouthWest (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195, United States
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