Relationship

This past week a nephew and his wife, who live in Argentina, have been visiting the Iguazú waterfalls (pronounced ee-gwa-soo, emphasising the last syllable) that are on the border between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.  It is wonderful to see the falls that form part of the jungle of the very northern tip of Argentina.  I have had such a privilege twice and both times have been moved by the spectacle.  The name Iguazú comes from the two Guaraní (native Indian) words ‘I’ meaning big and ‘guazú’ meaning water – big water.  It has been so nice to see their photos and remembering the times I spent there, seeing the multitude of huge multi-coloured butterflies and the birds flying in and out of the water to the nests they have made behind the falls to protect their chicks against predators.  When you break it down there is nothing that spectacular about water and a mountainside in the jungle, but when you put the two together and see how the relationship and interaction between the two work, that is spectacular.

As I said last week I have been putting various seeds into small pots with compost in the hope that later in the year we can enjoy the produce.  I have watered them carefully and put them in a warm place and they are just beginning to show their tiny shoots.  When the shoots are big enough and strong enough I will transfer them to larger pots or plant outside.  Again the seed and the compost are nothing special in themselves but when they are put together with water, heat and protection against the unfavourable elements outside, that interaction and interdependence is what produces the wonder of a plant growing from such a tiny seed.

We can see many cookery programmes on the TV.  To take the same analogy into the sphere of cookery, you could put all the ingredients into a bowl – some flour, sugar, margarine, egg and flavouring and nothing will happen.  You will simply have a bowl of flour, sugar, margarine, egg and flavouring.  It’s when you mix them all together and surround them with heat for a specified time that they result in a tasty cake.

What set me off thinking along these lines is some meditations from Richard Rohr that I received earlier this week about the Trinity.  I think his words are better than mine:

In our attempts to explain the Trinitarian Mystery in the past, we overemphasized the individual qualities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but not so much the relationships between them. It is in the relationships themselves where all the power is! This is where all the meaning is! We can name them all with masculine words (as we have done up to now), we can name them with feminine or neutered words if you wish, but in both cases you can miss the precise way that they relate to one another—and thus miss the major point.  The Mystery of God as Trinity invites us into a dynamism, a flow, a relationship, a waterwheel of love, or a “fountain fullness of love” as Bonaventure put it. Trinity says that God is a verb much more than a noun, an energy and action more than a concept.

We tend to think of the Trinity as three, separate beings but it is in their three-in-oneness that makes the Godhead so wonderful – the three equal in power and importance and totally interactive and interdependent on each other.  As Jesus said, ‘I and the Father am one.’  We can meet together and often there is one who is ‘above’ or more important than the others, where the many are dependent on the one and we really miss the point of the Trinity.  Jesus prayed that we should be one as He and the Father are one.  It is the relationship, interaction and interdependence that show His awesome power at work.  Again I quote Richard Rohr:

 Paul says, “God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25). That awesome line gives us a key into the Mystery of Trinity. I would describe human strength as self-sufficiency or autonomy. God’s weakness I would describe as Interbeing or shared intimacy.

Human strength admires holding on. Human weakness is about letting go into the Other, handing over the self to another and receiving your self from another. Human strength admires personal independence. But God’s Mystery is total mutual dependence and interdependence. We like control more than surrendering. God loves vulnerability. We admire needing no one. The Trinity is total intercommunion with all things and all Being. We are practiced at hiding and protecting ourselves. God seems to be in some kind of total disclosure for the sake of creating and loving the other.

Our strength, we think, is in asserting and protecting our boundaries. God is into dissolving boundaries between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet finding them anew in that very outpouring! The space created by outpouring is automatically filled up by infilling.

I can have an ocean of water and a whole range of mountains but if the two never meet there will never be a waterfall.  I can have a whole bag of flour but if I don’t mix it with other ingredients, the result will still only be a whole bag of flour.  On its own it will never be a cake.  Each ingredient is equally important and totally interdependent.   And so it is in relationship with others and with God.  I can be part of a huge crowd, all wanting the same experience but if there is no interaction and no mutual interdependence with each other and God, there will be no end product - we will simply be people.  I could go to a pop concert and have a great night out with other like-minded people but come out being exactly the same person as I was when I went in.  The experience was enjoyable but hasn’t made any difference to my life.  It’s not about the getting together, whatever form that might take; it is about the relationship within that togetherness that makes the difference.