Trinity Sunday—Who are you in relationship with?
This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. The day we celebrate the Holy Trinity. As a preview here's my two sentence homily on the Trinity.
It's a Holy Mystery—you're not supposed to understand it.
It's all about relationships.
All of the Abrahamic faiths claim that God is relational and in relationship with all that God created, but the doctrine of the Trinity (as mysterious as it may be) proclaims that God in the very nature of God's self is deeply relational. Three persons. One God. All in deep, intimate relationship with each other.
We are defined by relationships, and we are who we are largely because of relationships. Are you a son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father, friend, co-worker, boss, employee, doctor, patient, client, consultant? All of those definitions are relational because they implicitly name another person also in the relationship. A large part of our spiritual journey, and our spiritual work, is about seeking, maintaining, and growing in relationship--primarily our relationship with the God who is all about relationship.
 Now take a look at this picture. A few months ago, we took a short family vacation. The place we stayed had an indoor pool, with a funky, 1950s "Trader Vic's"-for-kids vibe. The proprietors were clearly trying to create a fun and safe atmosphere for family relationships to be refreshed and renewed. But there was a major disconnect between the desire and the execution.
The place was minimally staffed. And in place of humans that could foster and develop relationships between the visitors and the management, there were rules. Lots and lots of rules. This was only one of the many signs posted around the pool. A lone staff person very occasionally came by to make sure we were all wearing our color-coded armbands (signifying that we were allowed in the "fun center" that day). The rest of the time we were left to fend for ourselves.
I'm sure I saw violations of almost every one of these pool rules. There was a lot of running. Food and candy wrappers were strewn around. I know we were in violation of the absurd rule about "no wet bathing suits" (I still can't figure out how that one was supposed to be enforced in a pool!). Only the one about not pouring water or ice down the slide was strictly observed, but only because there was no slide to pour anything down.
We had little trouble monitoring our own children. It appeared that everyone was trying to "tend their own" with varying degrees of success. I admit being very reluctant to enforce these rules with other people's children. I think everyone else there was similarly reluctant. As I pondered my own discomfort with this (my internal dialogue went something like this, "There are rules; they need to be enforced. I'll monitor my own kids, but should I also be responsible for other people's kids? Wouldn't that just turn me into the pool Nazi? Is that really my job?"), it occurred to me that part of my reluctance to enforce someone else's (the hotel's) rules outside of my own family had to do with the fact that I had very little relationship to the hotel, or with anyone else there. I was just a another individual at the pool. And I certainly had no relationship (other than lodger) with the hotel management, who had already notified everyone that they were taking no responsibility for our actions, and only wanted to be in the most limited kind of relationship with us.
My spouse tells me that all communication is about relationships. Communication is less about transferring information and much more about building relationships. How we communicate can often reveal much about relationships (just as a dialect will reveal a relationship to a particular part of the country). This authoritarian (and absurd) list of pool rules revealed that for the managers of this hotel the relationship that mattered most was the one between them and their insurance company. Really, between them and their bottom line. Not between management and customers.
Communication is all about relationships. God—the relational, three-in-one, mysterious Trinity—is all about relationships. Isn't it interesting then, that we refer to the Second Person of the Trinity—the Incarnate One, the Son of Man, Jesus the Christ—as Logos, as Word? God's Word comes to us as a human being. To be in a living, breathing, human relationship with us. God's Word comes relationally to us seeking, healing, releasing, binding, opening, reconciling, risking, giving.
This sign shows that we are communicating the relationships we really value all the time. As we move toward Trinity Sunday, take a look around. Take a look at all the ways you communicate with the wider world. What are your messages saying about your relationships?
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Daily Office? There's an app for that
 A number of apps are now available that make praying the daily office on the go pretty easy. A recent one is the ipray bcp. According to the news article about the deveolper it uses "morning and evening prayers from the English 1662 BCP, and has daily scripture readings from the 1922 lectionary revision of the English Prayer Book."
I haven't used it because I already use the Lectionary app which has the Revised Common Lectionary readings for Sundays and major feast days, as well as the Daily Office readings from the BCP. It also includes Collects for Sundays. This in conjunction with the iBCP app, which has the entire 1979 Book of Common Prayer, gives me everything I need.
True, you have to switch back and forth between apps to do a full daily office, but it fits in my pocket.
Do not disturb
 I've been trying to practice Centering Prayer for Lent. The method of centering prayer is quite simple: 1. choose a sacred word (I've been using YHWH to accompany my breath); 2.sit comfortably and close your eyes, then introduce the sacred word as a symbol of your consent to God's presence and action; 3. when thoughts arise, return to the word; 4. at the end remain in silence for a minute or two.
Once I'm quiet, and have introduced my word, variety of things happen: I start thinking about what will happen today (return to the word); I imagine a conversation that I need to have with someone (return to the word); I hear something outside, or the kids downstairs (return to the word)...Often some stunning insight about the upcoming sermon will suddenly pop up. Something so insightful and brilliant that I know it couldn't possibly come from me. The temptation I always have is to stop and write it down then and there. I'll forget it otherwise, right? But the wisdom of centering prayer says, "No. Let it go. Return to the word." I've struggled with it this week, but then (as often happens) I heard some Good News—a redeeming word—from an unlikely source.
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, RadioLab. In one segment the discussion revolved around muses and the creative process. And I heard Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) talking about an interview she had done with Tom Waits. Waits told a story about being stuck in traffic and having a perfect song suddenly come to him. He was completely frustrated because he had no recording device (this was before iPhones, kids), and nothing to write it down on. The song was insistent. Finally he said, as only Tom Waits could, "Look, can't you see that I'm busy now. I'm in the studio eight hours a day. You're more than welcome to come back duing those hours when I can actually do something about you. So please do that, but if you can't, then just leave me alone and go bother Leonard Cohen!"
You have to set boundaries, even with inspiration. It occured to me that falling into the temptation of jumping up from prayer to write something down—no matter how brilliant—is reacting out of an attitude of scarcity. An attitude of "There won't be enough. This won't come again. It's now or never." This is the way the world of advertising works—act now, widgets are going fast! It's the way we've been conditioned to react in the economy of instant everything. It is not the way God acts. With God there is always enough—enough inspiration, enough grace, and eternally enough time. So when those wonderful gems start to gleam in the dark of my prayer time, I've started saying, "Look, I'm praying now. Please come back later." Then I return to my word.
Prayer: like exercise for your brain
The second week of Kathryn Hermes plan for beginning contemplative prayer asks us to focus on an activity in the typical day: imagining it in the morning and inviting the Spirit to guide us in it through the day; remembering the activity and the invitation in the afternoon; and reviewing it in the evening. She asks us to look at decisions made and examine the results of those decisions so that we might become aware of when the Spirit is leading and when some other compulsion is driving us.
It's really good advice. And at some point I will give it a try. For right now I'm finding it difficult enough just quieting down. I've gone back to centering prayer, a tried and true method that I've used many times in the past. Although, I now feel like a complete beginner again. The "monkey mind" and noise when I sit down is quite astonishing. I can relate to the little figure of David trying really hard to ignore the little devil who sits next to him in this illustrated manuscript. I've noticed that the deeper into silence and meditation I go, the louder, more vivid and visceral the thoughts and images that try to distract me from it become. At times it feels like I'm trembling with effort to gently return to my sacred word and allow the thoughts to drift off.
I've also taken up a more regular yoga routine. This past week in class we were holding a particularly difficult pose and my muscles began to tremble with effort and fatigue. It occurred to me that this is similar to what has been happening during my twice daily centering prayer sessions. The quieter I become the noisier my mind gets, just as if it were a muscle that was reaching the point of fatigue. Of course, I also know that this is essential for both prayer and physical fitness. Working to the point of fatigue is how muscles grow. Is the same true of prayer?
Interact with us
I know many of you have "liked" us on Facebook, and I hope more of you will do so in the future.  I know there are others who have not yet ventured into the world of social media, and others who have and found it not to their liking. Social media just continues to grow. I encourage you to take a look at this video for some idea of how quickly the world of online communication is emerging.
Another piece of random data to keep in mind. The websites where The Episcopal Church is being talked about the most are on sites such as, Weight Watchers, and Mothering.com. These are places where (mostly) women are recommending churches to other women. Engaging in social media is an increasingly important means of evangelism (sharing the Good News).
Not long ago I read an article about how Facebook works (and why we as a church should care). The next day, another article was posted on how churches can make the best use of their Facebook accounts. I commend both short articles to you; the take away piece from both is that the Facebook algorithm basically blocks "boring" content-it's why some of your friends never show up in your feed. How does Facebook determine if something is "interesting"? By tracking the number of interactions (comments, likes, shares, clicks, views, etc.) it gets. The more interaction the more interesting Facebook thinks it is, and the more the page will be seen by others. An example sited by the authors of the articles: they recently told fans (people who "liked" their page) about an opportunity; only 78 people visited the actual page, but over 4,200 users saw the opportunity in their feed. As a point of comparison, in the last month we have had 173 different people interact with our page, and 4,178 is the number of times people (fans and not-yet-fans) have seen our postings. This was up 75% from the previous month. The bottom line: more interaction = more page views.
Last week, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship posted a link to a story in the Richmond Register about our screening of Traces of the Trade. I had not seen the article in the local paper, but I, and at least 649 of the people who "like" them on Facebook saw it, and who knows how many others!
I will continue to develop our online presence, and I want to encourage you to help! If you are on Facebook (and I know many of you are!) think about spending some time interacting with our page. Post photos, ask questions, respond to comments, reflect on the sermon, talk up something that is happening (Second Sunday Concerts, upcoming services, etc.). Let's carry the witness of who we are and who we follow into the world of social media.
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About Our Saviour 
