This Sunday is Trinity Sunday — a uniquely odd day of the church year dedicated to a theological doctrine. It may not get your blood pumping, and that's okay. But, the way we think and talk about God makes a difference, because our lives and living are shaped by core beliefs, whether they be religious or not.
I follow a singer and songwriter named Nick Cave. He has written some amazing lyrics that are weirdly religious, like:
I don't believe in an interventionist God
But I know, darling, that you do
But if I did, I would kneel down and ask Him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Silly, right? Who talks like this? Who would even know what interventionism is as a theological concept? In fact, I haven't heard "interventionist God" outside a systematic theology class. Maybe it's all just nonsense.
Each month, Nick Cave takes questions from fans and attempts to answer them in longer format writing that he shares with his "The Red Hand Files" email list. I'm on that list. This month, someone asked him plainly: "In your opinion, what is God?" Nick responds simply: "God is love." Does that sound familiar?
This rock star then goes on to say something so beautifully heartbreaking, I must share it with you. He writes: "(In this world) There is no problem of evil. There is only a problem of good. Why does a world that is so often cruel, insist on being beautiful, of being good? Why does it take a devastation for the world to reveal its true spiritual nature? I don't know the answer to this, but I do know there exists a kind of potentiality just beyond trauma. I suspect that trauma is the purifying fire through which we truly encounter the good in the world."
The backstory here is that Cave has had two sons die prematurely and tragically in recent years. These words do not come from a soul inexperienced with the realities of this world.
And, of course, neither are you. None of us is spared the tragedies and chances of this life. We see it all around us, in the headlines, in our relationships, in our hearts. And yet, the good remains. There is good in this world and in our lives. We have one another. You are a gift and a sign of goodness in my life — this I know. Each Sunday, even this oddly and awkwardly theological one like Trinity Sunday, is touched by the unspeakable goodness of coming together, feeling one another's presence, extending our hands to receive the mystery of Christ, and being shaped by actions and words and stories and warm bodies that remind us amidst the despair and devastation that, yes, there is goodness, even now. Hearts opened, hands extended, we say: "Yes, wow, thanks."
See you Sunday,
Nick
