I'd be reluctant to see this thread moved to Epiphanies. Because of the way one has to beware of treading on eggshells there, I don't post there. It would also be impossible to speak openly about what one really thinks, feels and believes oneself for fear of being told off or sent ashore for offending what someone might maintain could turn out to be somebody else's delicate spiritual sensibilities.
Ok @Telford, so the Holy Spirit is an 'extension of God' without being God. Is that what you are saying?
And that Christ is divine. Which makes him God.
You're beginning to sound bi-nitarian.
A bit like Milton.
You would be correct to think that my opinion is a bit confused.
When Paul writes
"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name" ( Phillipians 2.9) I interpret it as a bit of a promotion.
@Lamb Chopped I can see where your reaction is coming from, but I had rather hoped that the first of my three points was at least partially answering something of what you've just said.
I've also said elsewhere, but I can't remember whether I've ever mentioned it on the Ship that I think it's quite easy to get the impression from some sermons etc that there are two completely different Jesuses, who have little to do with each other.
One Jesus is what I describe as the man in cheesecloth robe and sandals who goes around doing good, teaching and healing people. He's often described as though he is the Jesus of the gospels. This Jesus is associated with those who say 'I don't get all of that theology; I just want the Sermon on the Mount'. The other Jesus is the one who died for our salvation, the one of cosmic, eternal and salvific significance, but who comes across as theological and somewhat abstract, valued more for what he does for us than for who he is. One could perhaps describe this one as 'the Jesus of the epistles'.
There then came a time when I realised that there is only one Jesus. There is no discrepancy, no dislocation. That one Jesus is both those Jesuses. There is also far more of the cosmic Jesus in the gospels and the cheesecloth robe and sandals Jesus in the epistles than I had realised. You can't have one without the other. That is not a problem. It may be difficult to grasp but it is a wonderful and joyful thing.
For me, there is something of this in St Paul's description of Jesus at 1 Col 15 ff, as being "the image (Gk eikon) of the invisible God". That image includes both Jesuses, because there is only one Jesus.
Perhaps I'm a bit odd, but I find that really exciting.
Enoch, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that nobody had said anything of that nature already on the thread, I meant rather that I was sorry there wasn't more of it--because, of course, you can get Trinitarian controversy all over the internet, but the kind of thing I described in my OP is a bit rarer, and in my experience, people hesitate to talk about it.
I should have replied to your first post (above) earlier, but I suspect I misread it. I'm sorry.
I'll reply to your second now, if you don't mind--which is to say that I, too, have had to deal with a multiplicity of images of Jesus, and my current theory is that he's just too much to get into my head at one time, if you know what I mean--too close, too transcendent, too human, too divine. Like trying to get the Grand Canyon in a single photo. And of course I have that problem multiplied when it comes to the Trinity.
I take it on faith (and as the years go by, on experience) that there is just one Jesus and one God (yes to the Trinity!) and that the difficulty I just mentioned has to do with my human limitations. And of course the one I mentioned in the OP has to do with the impacts of child abuse. I understand from other reading that others--for example, Madeleine L'Engle--found Jesus the hardest person of the Trinity to cope with, though I don't entirely understand why! And of course it's a commonplace to hear people naming the Spirit as the most difficult for them.
I don't by any means want to put down Trinitarian theology as something we ought not to do, or talk about, or even on occasion argue about. But I've found in my own life that there's a tendency to ... avoid ... the experiential by dragging in the academic and theological, mostly, I think, because the experiential can be too revealing.
And of course nobody needs to post on this thread.
And there are those (I believe) for whom the academic IS the experience, and if I can phrase it this way, St. Spock is their patron--and that's valid, too. I was very nearly one of these.
And what the hay, I suppose I'm wondering if by some miracle I might turn up an insight that would help me get past the particular blockage I suffer from. Though if that was my only intent, I'd have started it in All Saints.
I'd really prefer not to reduce the whole thread to helping me with my particular difficulties, because that gets boring for everybody, and I've got real life sources I'm working with anyway. And I'd prefer not to go to Epiphanies with it, myself, because I too have trouble posting acceptably on that board and tend to avoid it, having had some memorable and painful experiences there.
I most naturally pray to/ relate to God as Father. Humanly speaking, I’ve been lucky in that respect, though I do also recognise some issues.
sometimes I pray “Lord” without particularly considering whether it is Father or Son to whom I am praying.
I rarely pray to the Holy Spirit, partly because I don’t think that’s how the Spirit works, but also because I find it harder to conceive of the Holy Spirit as personal. Not that I don’t believe the Spirit to be personal, just that it’s a harder imaginative leap for me.
Starting again from somewhere else, at least as far as my own thinking goes...
Is it in fact the case that the personalities of the Three Persons are identical? I mean, I can see that given they/he are/is God (drat this language!), it must be so; but then, I would think position and, um, "background" might have some influence on what comes to the foreground.
Oh, quit shilly-shallying, Lamb Chopped.
My experience of the Spirit is of someone a bit ... quieter? than Jesus. Not different in nature; but not nearly as much in my face. Though you could certainly say that's because his function is to make the other two Persons known, and I think that would be right.
I don't know what to say of the Father, given my limitations. And that's complicated by the fact that "No one comes to the Father but by me," and I haven't the slightest how anybody could tease apart the experience from Christ from the experience of the Father.
Chances are high I'm worrying about it unnecessarily.
But given my background, I was bound to worry.... Another thing to get over.
I most naturally pray to/ relate to God as Father. Humanly speaking, I’ve been lucky in that respect, though I do also recognise some issues.
sometimes I pray “Lord” without particularly considering whether it is Father or Son to whom I am praying.
And there's another! Yes, I've prayed "Lord," and sometimes I mean by it Jesus, and sometimes (esp. if I've just been reading the OT, or are intentionally focusing on the Unity), it'll be the whole Trinity I'm thinking of.
@Lamb Chopped, I’ve followed responses with interest. I’m not sure I do have that experience, but this thread has me pondering whether unconsciously I do relate to one member of the Trinity better than others.
If you’re balanced, that in itself is interesting. D L Sayers was of the opinion that most human reflections of the Trinity (in creative people, as shown in their work) are scalene: tilted to one Person’s work or another (see The Mind of the Maker, “Scalene Trinities,” for a fascinating analysis of some well known authors and playwrights). My own writing shows a distinct tilt away from the Father’s area in favor of the Son and the Spirit (I’m not great on originating ideas, but decent on fleshing them out and interpreting them to an audience).
I think for me a lot of this is “seeing through a glass darkly” till I can see Him face to Face. I find Lewis’ analogy of a cube helpful—for us, we humans are one person, one being, like a 2-dimensional square (person) being one singular object (being). But a cube is made up of six squares, yet is one singular object. If we were like the 2-dimensional Flatlanders, who can’t actually see the third dimension, trying to imagine six squares being one singular object would be very difficult—you literally couldn’t point outside of the 2-D world, and drawings of this “cube” would likely involve six different squares stuck to each other somehow. I think it’s a little like that trying to grasp three Persons in one Being. (And to continue the Flatland analogy, we would be like finite 2-D squares trying to imagine an infinite 3-D solid!)
(Remember, this is an analogy, so it can only go so far.)
Ok. I've woken up in the wee small hours so this may not be entirely coherent (so what else is new?) ...;)
I commend @Lamb Chopped for starting this thread and raising these issues and everyone who has posted on it for doing so honestly and directly. People have been open about their difficulties and acknowledged what they find troubling or confusing.
That takes guts.
I also agree with those who would like to see the thread remain in Purgatory rather than transfer to Epiphanies.
I wouldn't see that as a 'promotion' to borrow @Telford's analogy and apply it differently... 😉
I think that would disenfrancise people who have important things to say here.
Be all that as it may, on the 'experiential' thing I can certainly see (and concur) with what @Lamb Chopped observes about our perception or apprehension of the Holy Spirit's 'work' as gentler as it were. He is described as 'The Comforter' of course.
We are told that the Holy Spirit 'takes' of the things of Christ and reminds us of them. I suggest that this is what is happening, without over-riding our own faculties, when we receive a new appreciation of some spiritual truth or a strengthened resolution or sense of awe, comfort or gratitude during a Bible study, a church service or time of personal prayer or contemplation.
A realisation or sense of reinforcement 'catches up with us' almost imperceptibly. 'Something understood.'
Hence the scriptural analogy of the breeze or wind.
So what we read in scripture or hear in church services or see in icons or sing in hymns etc 'becomes' part of our experience as the Holy Spirit 'applies' them to us, very gently and without drawing attention to himself - if we can put it in those - entirely scriptural -terms.
It's hard to convey these things. We can only speak as we find. Equally, we can none of us 'speak' to @Lamb Chopped's experience or what she describes as her particular challenges or difficulties -specifically with God the Father - but what we can do is listen and walk with her as it were. Lamb Chopped appears to have the conviction that these challenges with be resolved. We can only pray or empathise as this process unfolds.
We all 'see as through a glass darkly', but we still see.
@Telford, I can see your difficulty. There are several verses that appear to show Christ as an ordinary guy who gets 'promoted as it were. Some believe that he was endowed with his divinity at his baptism, for instance.
That's one for Kerygmania, I think.
I'm sure it's cropped up before but we could start a more textual discussion there.
What I would say - as I'm sure you'd expect me to - is that these difficulties or 'confusion' as you put it, can be resolved by application of traditional Trinitarian understandings. That doesn't mean that any doubts or puzzlement are immediately dispelled.
Finally, on the experiential side of things, we can be subject to 'confirmation bias' and wishful thinking of course, but I'm finding that what we contemplate, pray about or meditate on does seem to 'come about' in practice to some extent in our own experience.
For instance, one of the Apostles is my patron Saint. I find myself drawn to particular incidents in the Gospels where he is involved and particular verses and exchanges where he is among those who participate.
These take on a particular resonance at times in my own experience and understanding or the way I try to 'work out' my faith, however stumblingly.
I also find, experientially, that the annual round of liturgical services begin to shape my thinking and response to things. We 'indwell' the story as it were.
Which surely necessitates 'binitarianism' at least?
I apologise for trying to pigeon-hole you.
If Jesus is the Son of God and lives, then, depending on how you mean this, it must imply that he is divine, that he is God.
So God the Father is God.
God the Son is God.
That's two divine Persons in One God.
Which seems to contradict what you've written about the shema reference in Mark.
Some inconsistency here, don't you think? Unless you understand -'Son of God' and 'lives' in a different way to how they've traditionally been understood.
So now we come to the Holy Spirit who, you claim, 'is an extension of God.'
What does that mean?
That the Holy Spirit is divine? That the Holy Spirit is God?
In which case you've ended up with the Trinity whilst claiming to repudiate it.
Or are you saying that the Holy Spirit is an 'extension' of God without being God, without being 'of one essence with the Father'?
I'm sorry @Lamb Chopped if I'm getting away from the 'experiential' aspects here but these things are, I think, interlinked.
Sorry to double-post but whether we comprehend or apprehend it or not, I do believe that what we believe about God shapes and forms our experience or 'religious affections' as the old Puritans called it.
So this goes beyond purely abstract or academic theology. We Orthodox insist that we don't do academic theology. That doesn't mean that we don't have theologians who aren't egg-heads or academic.
What it does mean is that we aren't interested in a theology that isn't rooted in worship, in community and in connection with the Divine Mysteries.
All this about whether someone is unitarian, binitarian, or is a true Trinitarian who just finds it all too hard to grasp misses an important point, IMO. Devotion is far more important than intellectual understanding in our relationship with God. The anonymous writer of the contemplative classic, "The Cloud of Unknowing" wrote, "By love may he be gotten and holden, but by thought never." I often think Christianity is doctrinally top heavy. Due to heresies forming around very intellectual topics, and persecution from without, the early Church sought to define every jot and tittle of the internal workings of the Godhead.
I, for one, don't think that's possible. St Gregory Palamas said that God, in His essence, is entirely unknowable, a theme common to all mystical traditions. We can only know God by His energies by which He acts within creation. A perfect example of over intellectualising is the 4th century dispute with the Monophysites, which, to this day divides the Oriental Orthodox Churches from the rest of Christendom. They reject the Chalcedonian definition of Christ's two natures, one human and one divine, in favour of him having one nature which is both human and divine. I defy anyone to explain to me how anyone could explain the difference, or why it matters to one's devotional relationship with Christ.
The Trinity is a mystery, and best left that way. We should practice the presence of God until our worldly, egoic consciousness starts to yield to His infinite love, which we can then, hopefully, start to bestow on our fellow creatures. As I said previously, I have never understood the Trinity, and to try to fathom the inner relationships within it is way beyond my mortal brain, and though there are far greater intellects than mine in the world, I don't believe they're that great.
Due to heresies forming around very intellectual topics, and persecution from without, the early Church sought to define every jot and tittle of the internal workings of the Godhead.
I don't think the Church has ever sought to define anything that wasn't previously defined by a heresy - at which point it's not enough just to say we can't understand, you've got to say what's wrong. (But 'God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made' is not something I'd cite as a thoroughgoing rigorous definition.)
A perfect example of over intellectualising is the 4th century dispute with the Monophysites, which, to this day divides the Oriental Orthodox Churches from the rest of Christendom. They reject the Chalcedonian definition of Christ's two natures, one human and one divine, in favour of him having one nature which is both human and divine. I defy anyone to explain to me how anyone could explain the difference, or why it matters to one's devotional relationship with Christ.
I think in the twentieth century councils have agreed that neither the Oriental Orthodox nor the Chalcedonian churches believe in quite what the other side find objectionable.
One problem from a Chalcedonian perspective in saying Jesus only has one nature is that it implies he's not really human in the way the rest of us are human. All that low-grade Renaissance and Victorian imagery of a Jesus who is just a bit too good for the world and a bit too above normal human passions is effectively Monophysite.
...Is it in fact the case that the personalities of the Three Persons are identical? I mean, I can see that given they/he are/is God (drat this language!), it must be so; but then, I would think position and, um, "background" might have some influence on what comes to the foreground.
Starting from a young age, I didn't think of the Three Persons as having a personality, or three personalities. With hindsight, I'd say that I found it easier that way - the idea of relating to God at all is rather simpler and more straightforward if I don't have to struggle with all the complication that having to deal with someone's "personality" brings to bear on a relationship.
Which isn't to say that God didn't have to deal with my personality - it seemed to me quite normal that would be within the ability of a compassionate, graceful and merciful being - which I suppose emerged from the idea that God takes each of us as we are.
The dispute between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox certainly needs sorting out. It's long overdue.
It's all way above my ken, but the current sticking points seem to be that we (Eastern Orthodox) consider some of their Saints to be heretical and vice-versa.
When I ask clergy and readers why that can't be sorted out they exhale and roll their eyes.
Meanwhile, I can see what @pablito1954 is getting at and have sympathy for what he's saying, but I'm struggling to convey is that I don't believe that Trinitarian formularies and even debates about them are abstract and academic in the 'wrong' sense.
They developed, as Dafyd says, in response to or debate with heresies - and more than that I really do think that they guide or 'govern' (in a light touch kind of way) how we relate to the Godhead.
If we think in a Trinitarian way then it follows that we will relate to God in that way - and hopefully start to 'behave' in that way, deferring to one another, living self-sacrificially, comforting and nurturing others ... etc etc... all the qualities we 'see' in the various Persons of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
Our prayer and contemplation is then aligned with that and not disassociated from it.
I'm clearly not getting this across very well but that's what I'm driving at.
So, craving @Telford's indulgence and forgiveness for badgering him, the reason I'm pressing him on the Trinity isn't because I want to score intellectual points or win an argument - although Lord forgive me, I have a tendency to do that at times - but because I care about him.
I really believe there are significant 'benefits' in holding to a fully-orbed Trinitarian position and if I want what's best for people - I want them to share that.
If the Orthodox idea of 'theosis' means anything at all it means being caught up into the 'life' of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. We join the eternal 'dance' as some Western writers put it.
That's why I've been quoting liturgical texts as well as theological reflections - 'This is our faith ...'
We don't disaggregate these things in Orthodoxy. We do not separate prayer from theology and theology from prayer.
I really don't know how I can make it any clearer than at.
I'm not attempting a 'box-ticking exercise' here with Telford or anyone else.
Please please, please people. This isn't abstract theology for me. It's who I am. Who I will, by grace, become.
I've hesitated to answer this because I think I have a rather different approach to others, and that made me feel odd. I think I find the Holy Spirit to be the easiest one to identify with. Having come of age in the midst of a lot of charismatic weirdness that I found deeply off-putting, it's taken me a long while to get to this point.
However. Jesus said he was going away, and sending the Holy Spirit to be with us. Consequently it makes a lot of sense to me that experience of the presence of God is experience of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus is sitting down at the right hand of the Father, which, I don't know, sounds kind of a long way away to me? But the Holy Spirit is actually here. Like that's the whole point.
Not that this has much to do with charismatic weirdness. It doesn't mean to me that strange manifestations are around the corner. That feels to me like missing the point. The point is Jesus has sent us a knowable Someone who in some sense shares our daily experience.
God is love, and the Holy Spirit is God. The idea that the Holy Spirit loves us was quite an eye opener for me.
@Gamma Gamaliel The qualities you mention, deferring to one another, living self sacrificially, comforting and nurturing are, I believe, the spiritual qualities we all strive for. They may indeed be the qualities of the various persons of the Trinity, and meditating upon them is, hopefully, bringing you into their orbit. I would, however, argue that those qualities are the outgrowing of any authentic spiritual practice, Trinitarian or otherwise, Christian or otherwise.
Sure, I'm not saying that Christianity has a monopoly on these qualities, nor morality in general, come to that.
Neither do I see it as being in our gift to assess the authenticity or otherwise of other people's spiritual experiences or practices whatever their tradition or religion.
That's not for us to determine.
If it's abusive, harmful, illegal or exploitative then that's a different matter. The Madagascan government has clamped down on some regional funerary rituals for instance, on health grounds.
I won't spoil your dinner by describing what these entailed.
I'm expressing a view based on my understanding of traditional Trinitarian Christianity. In doing so, I'm not making a value judgement on how other people do things.
Yes, I was attempting to 'correct' or challenge Telford in terms of his understanding of the Trinity, for reasons I've explained.
That doesn't mean that I dismiss or disparage him as a person or cast doubts on the authenticity of his spiritual experiences.
I may 'prefer' him to present these in traditional Trinitarian terms, but that doesn't mean I'm saying that he has no experience or insights to speak of. Far from it.
I hope that's made things clearer.
I know I can ride hobby-horses at times but I hope you all believe me when I say that I am not questioning the authenticity or validity of anyone's spiritual practices or experience.
Sure, we have what theologians call the 'scandal of particularity.'
Christ is the Messiah. Christ is God.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the prayers or practices of people who don't believe that are meaningless or without merit.
@Gamma Gamaliel The "scandal of particularity" is common Christian currency, not only with regards to other faiths, but also interdenominationally, and it's the part of Christianity I struggle most with. Hence my perennialist leanings.
I've hesitated to answer this because I think I have a rather different approach to others, and that made me feel odd. I think I find the Holy Spirit to be the easiest one to identify with. Having come of age in the midst of a lot of charismatic weirdness that I found deeply off-putting, it's taken me a long while to get to this point.
However. Jesus said he was going away, and sending the Holy Spirit to be with us. Consequently it makes a lot of sense to me that experience of the presence of God is experience of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus is sitting down at the right hand of the Father, which, I don't know, sounds kind of a long way away to me? But the Holy Spirit is actually here. Like that's the whole point.
Not that this has much to do with charismatic weirdness. It doesn't mean to me that strange manifestations are around the corner. That feels to me like missing the point. The point is Jesus has sent us a knowable Someone who in some sense shares our daily experience.
God is love, and the Holy Spirit is God. The idea that the Holy Spirit loves us was quite an eye opener for me.
That's lovely.
My earthly father was around, but always emotionally distant and a man of very few words. I've tried hard to overcome this but I still find I think of God the Father as distant and not someone likely to talk to or listen to me. I've read a fair bit on Julian of Norwich and found that helpful - I was very close to my mother. Jesus similarly feels quite distant although I had an experience a few years back which helped me. I was in a group doing a visualisation-type exercise - go to a place in your mind that you've visited recently and have Jesus meet you there. I went to a mountain I'd gone to with my husband and couple of friends. I hadn't been able to make it to the top so had headed back down on my own and stopped for a while by a small stream, enjoying being on my own but feeling a bit rubbish about not being fit enough to keep up with the others. Jesus came along in walking clothes and boots with backpack to walk alongside me - didn't say anything, just came equipped to be at my side. And wanted to be there. And didn't leave me behind.
My first encounters with the Holy Spirit were in my charismatic student days and back then "moving in the gifts of the Spirit" felt very forced rather than a natural flow, and of course they had to take certain forms and manifestations. Latterly, though, the Holy Spirit fits best with my concept of God - numinous and inspired: as in, as close as the air we breathe.
It’s the “wanted to be there” that gets me in my own experiences. I’m not at all accustomed to being wanted just for me, as opposed to the things I do; and to have that sense from the Lord is… wonderful.
@Gamma Gamaliel The "scandal of particularity" is common Christian currency, not only with regards to other faiths, but also interdenominationally, and it's the part of Christianity I struggle most with. Hence my perennialist leanings.
Sure. But read what I wrote. I am accepting the 'particularity' of Christ and the Christian revelation but didn't say that means I negate or disparage anything and everything that falls outside of those parameters.
So, craving @Telford's indulgence and forgiveness for badgering him, the reason I'm pressing him on the Trinity isn't because I want to score intellectual points or win an argument - although Lord forgive me, I have a tendency to do that at times - but because I care about him.
The dispute between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox certainly needs sorting out. It's long overdue.
It's all way above my ken, but the current sticking points seem to be that we (Eastern Orthodox) consider some of their Saints to be heretical and vice-versa.
When I ask clergy and readers why that can't be sorted out they exhale and roll their eyes.
At a recent meeting of bishops from Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches, hosted by the Coptic Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, it was apparently agreed that they should now follow up a report agreed ten years ago. Little steps, but slower than a snail.
This meeting was, perhaps, more notable for the presence of Russian and Greek bishops in the same room.
Some peoplr have suggested that the way to make progress would be to lock these bishops in a room, with ample supplies of coffee and no access to a toilet, until they came to an agreement.
When I say "background," I'm referring (here, at least) to the child abuse. And when you've been taught from early childhood that the least imprecision in communication is going to get you punished, AND that your parents deeply and personally resent any mistake you make about them, well, it doesn't make for an ideal mindset for addressing the Trinity, does it?
Certainly what I know of the Trinity from the Bible is a great help, and in fact the only reason I dare approach God at all; but I'm nowhere near healed yet, and there's a lot of growing to do. And a lot of it is finding a way to get the heart to where the head is already. Because it's easier to say "God is trustworthy, patient, loving and kind" and believe it with all your mind than to actually trust him with the whole heart, and carry that out in action. In my experience.
The dispute between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox certainly needs sorting out. It's long overdue.
It's all way above my ken, but the current sticking points seem to be that we (Eastern Orthodox) consider some of their Saints to be heretical and vice-versa.
When I ask clergy and readers why that can't be sorted out they exhale and roll their eyes.
At a recent meeting of bishops from Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches, hosted by the Coptic Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, it was apparently agreed that they should now follow up a report agreed ten years ago. Little steps, but slower than a snail.
This meeting was, perhaps, more notable for the presence of Russian and Greek bishops in the same room.
Some peoplr have suggested that the way to make progress would be to lock these bishops in a room, with ample supplies of coffee and no access to a toilet, until they came to an agreement.
On theology 'soothing' worries and concerns. I think that can certainly be the case but it doesn't necessarily follow. One of the Fathers, I forget which one, said that excessive theologising can drive us mad.
I don't think there's any way of 'legislating' how long a healing or adjustment process - of whatever kind - could or should last.
All we can do is try to head in the right direction.
The Apostle Philip said, 'Come and see.' But people still had to go if they were going to see. They would not have seen had they stayed put.
Fr Thomas Hopko wrote that the only thing we can be certain of is temptation until our last breath.
Great. Thanks ...
But forewarned is forearmed.
'Come, let us know, let us press on to know the Lord whose coming is as certain as the dawn.'
Certainly what I know of the Trinity from the Bible is a great help, and in fact the only reason I dare approach God at all; but I'm nowhere near healed yet, and there's a lot of growing to do.
Yes, apologies as I think I might have misunderstood the thrust of your previous remark; Where I was coming from is that one of the things we know from these boards is that you are a Lutheran, and worrying that one was not doing prayer well seemed to be a very un-Lutheran thing to do, in terms of turning it into a work (it's a little parallel to the impulse within us that blames our lack of a prayer life when something goes wrong, of course we should have a better prayer life, but that isn't why things go wrong).
A lot of the language around God relating to us as children uses words/thoughts that are bring to mind very young children (words like 'nursing' and 'Abba'), and I'm not sure they are great at the finer nuances of relationships really (when she was teething my daughter would try and chew my fingers whenever I picked her up and then cry if I took them away).
So maybe we need to preach the gospel to ourselves (but constantly repent of turning *that* into a work).
Heh. Yes, an old professor of mine was constantly reminding us that “Christ died even for Christians “ and therefore we needed to preach the gospel to the converted just as often as we did the unconverted, because human beings have such a tendency to legalism.
But no, I don’t conceive of prayer as a work. More a mode of being, maybe?
I've a big tendency to beat myself up, but at the same time don't tend to go in for trying to 'evaluate' my prayer life, to use a phrase I don't particularly like.
I know some people find journalling helpful but I'd be worried I'd find that too introspective.
These days I simply pray and try not to over-think it. I do a lot of over-thinking here instead ... (and elsewhere in 'real life').
If you’re balanced, that in itself is interesting.
Oh, I don’t know about being balanced. Perhaps it’s more an idiosyncratic imbalance.
Once thing I’ve realized as I’ve read through this thread is that I really don’t think of God the Father as my Father, as a personal father, a father to me. Despite Jesus’s use of abba, thats just not where I go.
I had a great father, whom I loved—and still love years after his death, very much—and with whom my siblings and I had a very good relationship. So it’s not any reservations or problems connected to the idea of “father.” It’s just not how I “hear” “Father” when used in reference to the First Person of the Trinity.
I mainly understand “Father,” and “Son” as being about how the First and Second Persons of the Trinity relate to each other—the “Source,” as it were, and the “eternally begotten.” To the extent I think of “Father” outside of relationship to “Son,” I probably think of something more like the Norse All-Father—the creator/source of all creation.
If that in someway impairs my relationship with the First Person of the Trinity, I’m not aware of it.
I mainly understand “Father,” and “Son” as being about how the First and Second Persons of the Trinity relate to each other—the “Source,” as it were, and the “eternally begotten.” To the extent I think of “Father” outside of relationship to “Son,” I probably think of something more like the Norse All-Father—the creator/source of all creation.
I tend to hold that together with the personal - in the sense of feeling that God would also be a more 'real' (in the Great Divorce sense) of my own father.
[Although I believe that there are debates as to how much the notion of All-Father was borrowed from Roman or Christian sources and whether all-father in context actually means creator of all.]
I mainly understand “Father,” and “Son” as being about how the First and Second Persons of the Trinity relate to each other—the “Source,” as it were, and the “eternally begotten.” To the extent I think of “Father” outside of relationship to “Son,” I probably think of something more like the Norse All-Father—the creator/source of all creation.
I tend to hold that together with the personal - in the sense of feeling that God would also be a more 'real' (in the Great Divorce sense) of my own father.
[Although I believe that there are debates as to how much the notion of All-Father was borrowed from Roman or Christian sources and whether all-father in context actually means creator of all.]
Yes, I think that’s case, but it was the quickest reference I could come up with.
Perhaps this is when I admit I’ve never read The Great Divorce.
I suppose for all of us relationship to the Trinity is a work in progress, and, Nick, I don’t see why your way of approaching the Father should be considered impaired. For all I know, maybe God wants a variety of approaches. Mine’s impaired, but that’s for obvious reasons and apparently in the process of being fixed—though I haven’t a clue what happens next.
I suppose for all of us relationship to the Trinity is a work in progress, and, Nick, I don’t see why your way of approaching the Father should be considered impaired. For all I know, maybe God wants a variety of approaches. Mine’s impaired, but that’s for obvious reasons and apparently in the process of being fixed—though I haven’t a clue what happens next.
Definitely works in progress for all of us, I think. And while my particular approach may not (or may well) be symptomatic of impairment, I am quite sure my relationship with the Father is impaired in various ways, some of which I’m well aware of and some of which I’m only dimly aware of or oblivious to.
Thankfully, God was in Christ reconciling the world—including me—to himself.
Back to the OP, being introverted and possibly neurodivergent, I don't naturally find myself relating to Jesus as a human being.
I’m definitely neurodivergent and very weird as well (not the same thing) and knowing/trusting that Jesus/God understands me even if no one, or hardly anyone else does, helps. I struggle with being human. Knowing that He knows all of that, knows and understands every thought I have every nanosecond, all of my weirdness, whatever makes me me, no matter what’s going on with it, embracing me, even though He is human (fully God, fully man), more intimately than anyone else does, comforts me.
When I say "background," I'm referring (here, at least) to the child abuse. And when you've been taught from early childhood that the least imprecision in communication is going to get you punished, AND that your parents deeply and personally resent any mistake you make about them, well, it doesn't make for an ideal mindset for addressing the Trinity, does it?
Certainly what I know of the Trinity from the Bible is a great help, and in fact the only reason I dare approach God at all; but I'm nowhere near healed yet, and there's a lot of growing to do. And a lot of it is finding a way to get the heart to where the head is already. Because it's easier to say "God is trustworthy, patient, loving and kind" and believe it with all your mind than to actually trust him with the whole heart, and carry that out in action. In my experience.
I mainly understand “Father,” and “Son” as being about how the First and Second Persons of the Trinity relate to each other—the “Source,” as it were, and the “eternally begotten.” To the extent I think of “Father” outside of relationship to “Son,” I probably think of something more like the Norse All-Father—the creator/source of all creation.
I tend to hold that together with the personal - in the sense of feeling that God would also be a more 'real' (in the Great Divorce sense) of my own father.
[Although I believe that there are debates as to how much the notion of All-Father was borrowed from Roman or Christian sources and whether all-father in context actually means creator of all.]
Yes, I think that’s case, but it was the quickest reference I could come up with.
Perhaps this is when I admit I’ve never read The Great Divorce.
Perhaps this is when I admit I’ve never read The Great Divorce.
Oh, it’s awesome!! ❤️
I read The Great Divorce years ago and am sure I've missed some of the important points. Does anyone think there would be any mileage in a separate book thread?
Comments
I'd be reluctant to see this thread moved to Epiphanies. Because of the way one has to beware of treading on eggshells there, I don't post there. It would also be impossible to speak openly about what one really thinks, feels and believes oneself for fear of being told off or sent ashore for offending what someone might maintain could turn out to be somebody else's delicate spiritual sensibilities.
You would be correct to think that my opinion is a bit confused.
When Paul writes
"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name" ( Phillipians 2.9) I interpret it as a bit of a promotion.
Enoch, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that nobody had said anything of that nature already on the thread, I meant rather that I was sorry there wasn't more of it--because, of course, you can get Trinitarian controversy all over the internet, but the kind of thing I described in my OP is a bit rarer, and in my experience, people hesitate to talk about it.
I should have replied to your first post (above) earlier, but I suspect I misread it. I'm sorry.
I'll reply to your second now, if you don't mind--which is to say that I, too, have had to deal with a multiplicity of images of Jesus, and my current theory is that he's just too much to get into my head at one time, if you know what I mean--too close, too transcendent, too human, too divine. Like trying to get the Grand Canyon in a single photo. And of course I have that problem multiplied when it comes to the Trinity.
I take it on faith (and as the years go by, on experience) that there is just one Jesus and one God (yes to the Trinity!) and that the difficulty I just mentioned has to do with my human limitations. And of course the one I mentioned in the OP has to do with the impacts of child abuse. I understand from other reading that others--for example, Madeleine L'Engle--found Jesus the hardest person of the Trinity to cope with, though I don't entirely understand why! And of course it's a commonplace to hear people naming the Spirit as the most difficult for them.
I don't by any means want to put down Trinitarian theology as something we ought not to do, or talk about, or even on occasion argue about. But I've found in my own life that there's a tendency to ... avoid ... the experiential by dragging in the academic and theological, mostly, I think, because the experiential can be too revealing.
And of course nobody needs to post on this thread.
And there are those (I believe) for whom the academic IS the experience, and if I can phrase it this way, St. Spock is their patron--and that's valid, too. I was very nearly one of these.
And what the hay, I suppose I'm wondering if by some miracle I might turn up an insight that would help me get past the particular blockage I suffer from. Though if that was my only intent, I'd have started it in All Saints.
I'd really prefer not to reduce the whole thread to helping me with my particular difficulties, because that gets boring for everybody, and I've got real life sources I'm working with anyway. And I'd prefer not to go to Epiphanies with it, myself, because I too have trouble posting acceptably on that board and tend to avoid it, having had some memorable and painful experiences there.
sometimes I pray “Lord” without particularly considering whether it is Father or Son to whom I am praying.
I rarely pray to the Holy Spirit, partly because I don’t think that’s how the Spirit works, but also because I find it harder to conceive of the Holy Spirit as personal. Not that I don’t believe the Spirit to be personal, just that it’s a harder imaginative leap for me.
Starting again from somewhere else, at least as far as my own thinking goes...
Is it in fact the case that the personalities of the Three Persons are identical? I mean, I can see that given they/he are/is God (drat this language!), it must be so; but then, I would think position and, um, "background" might have some influence on what comes to the foreground.
Oh, quit shilly-shallying, Lamb Chopped.
My experience of the Spirit is of someone a bit ... quieter? than Jesus. Not different in nature; but not nearly as much in my face. Though you could certainly say that's because his function is to make the other two Persons known, and I think that would be right.
I don't know what to say of the Father, given my limitations. And that's complicated by the fact that "No one comes to the Father but by me," and I haven't the slightest how anybody could tease apart the experience from Christ from the experience of the Father.
Chances are high I'm worrying about it unnecessarily.
But given my background, I was bound to worry.... Another thing to get over.
And there's another! Yes, I've prayed "Lord," and sometimes I mean by it Jesus, and sometimes (esp. if I've just been reading the OT, or are intentionally focusing on the Unity), it'll be the whole Trinity I'm thinking of.
Do you mean you’re Unitarian?
(Remember, this is an analogy, so it can only go so far.)
I commend @Lamb Chopped for starting this thread and raising these issues and everyone who has posted on it for doing so honestly and directly. People have been open about their difficulties and acknowledged what they find troubling or confusing.
That takes guts.
I also agree with those who would like to see the thread remain in Purgatory rather than transfer to Epiphanies.
I wouldn't see that as a 'promotion' to borrow @Telford's analogy and apply it differently... 😉
I think that would disenfrancise people who have important things to say here.
Be all that as it may, on the 'experiential' thing I can certainly see (and concur) with what @Lamb Chopped observes about our perception or apprehension of the Holy Spirit's 'work' as gentler as it were. He is described as 'The Comforter' of course.
We are told that the Holy Spirit 'takes' of the things of Christ and reminds us of them. I suggest that this is what is happening, without over-riding our own faculties, when we receive a new appreciation of some spiritual truth or a strengthened resolution or sense of awe, comfort or gratitude during a Bible study, a church service or time of personal prayer or contemplation.
A realisation or sense of reinforcement 'catches up with us' almost imperceptibly. 'Something understood.'
Hence the scriptural analogy of the breeze or wind.
So what we read in scripture or hear in church services or see in icons or sing in hymns etc 'becomes' part of our experience as the Holy Spirit 'applies' them to us, very gently and without drawing attention to himself - if we can put it in those - entirely scriptural -terms.
It's hard to convey these things. We can only speak as we find. Equally, we can none of us 'speak' to @Lamb Chopped's experience or what she describes as her particular challenges or difficulties -specifically with God the Father - but what we can do is listen and walk with her as it were. Lamb Chopped appears to have the conviction that these challenges with be resolved. We can only pray or empathise as this process unfolds.
We all 'see as through a glass darkly', but we still see.
@Telford, I can see your difficulty. There are several verses that appear to show Christ as an ordinary guy who gets 'promoted as it were. Some believe that he was endowed with his divinity at his baptism, for instance.
That's one for Kerygmania, I think.
I'm sure it's cropped up before but we could start a more textual discussion there.
What I would say - as I'm sure you'd expect me to - is that these difficulties or 'confusion' as you put it, can be resolved by application of traditional Trinitarian understandings. That doesn't mean that any doubts or puzzlement are immediately dispelled.
Finally, on the experiential side of things, we can be subject to 'confirmation bias' and wishful thinking of course, but I'm finding that what we contemplate, pray about or meditate on does seem to 'come about' in practice to some extent in our own experience.
For instance, one of the Apostles is my patron Saint. I find myself drawn to particular incidents in the Gospels where he is involved and particular verses and exchanges where he is among those who participate.
These take on a particular resonance at times in my own experience and understanding or the way I try to 'work out' my faith, however stumblingly.
I also find, experientially, that the annual round of liturgical services begin to shape my thinking and response to things. We 'indwell' the story as it were.
Not really. I believe that Jesus is the son of God and that He lives.
I apologise for trying to pigeon-hole you.
If Jesus is the Son of God and lives, then, depending on how you mean this, it must imply that he is divine, that he is God.
So God the Father is God.
God the Son is God.
That's two divine Persons in One God.
Which seems to contradict what you've written about the shema reference in Mark.
Some inconsistency here, don't you think? Unless you understand -'Son of God' and 'lives' in a different way to how they've traditionally been understood.
So now we come to the Holy Spirit who, you claim, 'is an extension of God.'
What does that mean?
That the Holy Spirit is divine? That the Holy Spirit is God?
In which case you've ended up with the Trinity whilst claiming to repudiate it.
Or are you saying that the Holy Spirit is an 'extension' of God without being God, without being 'of one essence with the Father'?
I'm sorry @Lamb Chopped if I'm getting away from the 'experiential' aspects here but these things are, I think, interlinked.
So this goes beyond purely abstract or academic theology. We Orthodox insist that we don't do academic theology. That doesn't mean that we don't have theologians who aren't egg-heads or academic.
What it does mean is that we aren't interested in a theology that isn't rooted in worship, in community and in connection with the Divine Mysteries.
I, for one, don't think that's possible. St Gregory Palamas said that God, in His essence, is entirely unknowable, a theme common to all mystical traditions. We can only know God by His energies by which He acts within creation. A perfect example of over intellectualising is the 4th century dispute with the Monophysites, which, to this day divides the Oriental Orthodox Churches from the rest of Christendom. They reject the Chalcedonian definition of Christ's two natures, one human and one divine, in favour of him having one nature which is both human and divine. I defy anyone to explain to me how anyone could explain the difference, or why it matters to one's devotional relationship with Christ.
The Trinity is a mystery, and best left that way. We should practice the presence of God until our worldly, egoic consciousness starts to yield to His infinite love, which we can then, hopefully, start to bestow on our fellow creatures. As I said previously, I have never understood the Trinity, and to try to fathom the inner relationships within it is way beyond my mortal brain, and though there are far greater intellects than mine in the world, I don't believe they're that great.
I think in the twentieth century councils have agreed that neither the Oriental Orthodox nor the Chalcedonian churches believe in quite what the other side find objectionable.
One problem from a Chalcedonian perspective in saying Jesus only has one nature is that it implies he's not really human in the way the rest of us are human. All that low-grade Renaissance and Victorian imagery of a Jesus who is just a bit too good for the world and a bit too above normal human passions is effectively Monophysite.
Interesting. Are you able to expand on that?
Starting from a young age, I didn't think of the Three Persons as having a personality, or three personalities. With hindsight, I'd say that I found it easier that way - the idea of relating to God at all is rather simpler and more straightforward if I don't have to struggle with all the complication that having to deal with someone's "personality" brings to bear on a relationship.
Which isn't to say that God didn't have to deal with my personality - it seemed to me quite normal that would be within the ability of a compassionate, graceful and merciful being - which I suppose emerged from the idea that God takes each of us as we are.
It's all way above my ken, but the current sticking points seem to be that we (Eastern Orthodox) consider some of their Saints to be heretical and vice-versa.
When I ask clergy and readers why that can't be sorted out they exhale and roll their eyes.
Meanwhile, I can see what @pablito1954 is getting at and have sympathy for what he's saying, but I'm struggling to convey is that I don't believe that Trinitarian formularies and even debates about them are abstract and academic in the 'wrong' sense.
They developed, as Dafyd says, in response to or debate with heresies - and more than that I really do think that they guide or 'govern' (in a light touch kind of way) how we relate to the Godhead.
If we think in a Trinitarian way then it follows that we will relate to God in that way - and hopefully start to 'behave' in that way, deferring to one another, living self-sacrificially, comforting and nurturing others ... etc etc... all the qualities we 'see' in the various Persons of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
Our prayer and contemplation is then aligned with that and not disassociated from it.
I'm clearly not getting this across very well but that's what I'm driving at.
So, craving @Telford's indulgence and forgiveness for badgering him, the reason I'm pressing him on the Trinity isn't because I want to score intellectual points or win an argument - although Lord forgive me, I have a tendency to do that at times - but because I care about him.
I really believe there are significant 'benefits' in holding to a fully-orbed Trinitarian position and if I want what's best for people - I want them to share that.
If the Orthodox idea of 'theosis' means anything at all it means being caught up into the 'life' of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. We join the eternal 'dance' as some Western writers put it.
That's why I've been quoting liturgical texts as well as theological reflections - 'This is our faith ...'
We don't disaggregate these things in Orthodoxy. We do not separate prayer from theology and theology from prayer.
I really don't know how I can make it any clearer than at.
I'm not attempting a 'box-ticking exercise' here with Telford or anyone else.
Please please, please people. This isn't abstract theology for me. It's who I am. Who I will, by grace, become.
However. Jesus said he was going away, and sending the Holy Spirit to be with us. Consequently it makes a lot of sense to me that experience of the presence of God is experience of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus is sitting down at the right hand of the Father, which, I don't know, sounds kind of a long way away to me? But the Holy Spirit is actually here. Like that's the whole point.
Not that this has much to do with charismatic weirdness. It doesn't mean to me that strange manifestations are around the corner. That feels to me like missing the point. The point is Jesus has sent us a knowable Someone who in some sense shares our daily experience.
God is love, and the Holy Spirit is God. The idea that the Holy Spirit loves us was quite an eye opener for me.
What do you feel relating to Jesus as a human being would look like - or how do you feel that other people do it?
Neither do I see it as being in our gift to assess the authenticity or otherwise of other people's spiritual experiences or practices whatever their tradition or religion.
That's not for us to determine.
If it's abusive, harmful, illegal or exploitative then that's a different matter. The Madagascan government has clamped down on some regional funerary rituals for instance, on health grounds.
I won't spoil your dinner by describing what these entailed.
I'm expressing a view based on my understanding of traditional Trinitarian Christianity. In doing so, I'm not making a value judgement on how other people do things.
Yes, I was attempting to 'correct' or challenge Telford in terms of his understanding of the Trinity, for reasons I've explained.
That doesn't mean that I dismiss or disparage him as a person or cast doubts on the authenticity of his spiritual experiences.
I may 'prefer' him to present these in traditional Trinitarian terms, but that doesn't mean I'm saying that he has no experience or insights to speak of. Far from it.
I hope that's made things clearer.
I know I can ride hobby-horses at times but I hope you all believe me when I say that I am not questioning the authenticity or validity of anyone's spiritual practices or experience.
Sure, we have what theologians call the 'scandal of particularity.'
Christ is the Messiah. Christ is God.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the prayers or practices of people who don't believe that are meaningless or without merit.
That's lovely.
My earthly father was around, but always emotionally distant and a man of very few words. I've tried hard to overcome this but I still find I think of God the Father as distant and not someone likely to talk to or listen to me. I've read a fair bit on Julian of Norwich and found that helpful - I was very close to my mother. Jesus similarly feels quite distant although I had an experience a few years back which helped me. I was in a group doing a visualisation-type exercise - go to a place in your mind that you've visited recently and have Jesus meet you there. I went to a mountain I'd gone to with my husband and couple of friends. I hadn't been able to make it to the top so had headed back down on my own and stopped for a while by a small stream, enjoying being on my own but feeling a bit rubbish about not being fit enough to keep up with the others. Jesus came along in walking clothes and boots with backpack to walk alongside me - didn't say anything, just came equipped to be at my side. And wanted to be there. And didn't leave me behind.
My first encounters with the Holy Spirit were in my charismatic student days and back then "moving in the gifts of the Spirit" felt very forced rather than a natural flow, and of course they had to take certain forms and manifestations. Latterly, though, the Holy Spirit fits best with my concept of God - numinous and inspired: as in, as close as the air we breathe.
Sure. But read what I wrote. I am accepting the 'particularity' of Christ and the Christian revelation but didn't say that means I negate or disparage anything and everything that falls outside of those parameters.
That's not in our gift.
I don't know how I can put things any clearer.
At a recent meeting of bishops from Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches, hosted by the Coptic Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, it was apparently agreed that they should now follow up a report agreed ten years ago. Little steps, but slower than a snail.
This meeting was, perhaps, more notable for the presence of Russian and Greek bishops in the same room.
Some peoplr have suggested that the way to make progress would be to lock these bishops in a room, with ample supplies of coffee and no access to a toilet, until they came to an agreement.
Doesn't the theological side of your background soothe that worrying?
Certainly what I know of the Trinity from the Bible is a great help, and in fact the only reason I dare approach God at all; but I'm nowhere near healed yet, and there's a lot of growing to do. And a lot of it is finding a way to get the heart to where the head is already. Because it's easier to say "God is trustworthy, patient, loving and kind" and believe it with all your mind than to actually trust him with the whole heart, and carry that out in action. In my experience.
Yes. This.
Can we make the coffee decaf?
I don't think there's any way of 'legislating' how long a healing or adjustment process - of whatever kind - could or should last.
All we can do is try to head in the right direction.
The Apostle Philip said, 'Come and see.' But people still had to go if they were going to see. They would not have seen had they stayed put.
Fr Thomas Hopko wrote that the only thing we can be certain of is temptation until our last breath.
Great. Thanks ...
But forewarned is forearmed.
'Come, let us know, let us press on to know the Lord whose coming is as certain as the dawn.'
Yes, apologies as I think I might have misunderstood the thrust of your previous remark; Where I was coming from is that one of the things we know from these boards is that you are a Lutheran, and worrying that one was not doing prayer well seemed to be a very un-Lutheran thing to do, in terms of turning it into a work (it's a little parallel to the impulse within us that blames our lack of a prayer life when something goes wrong, of course we should have a better prayer life, but that isn't why things go wrong).
A lot of the language around God relating to us as children uses words/thoughts that are bring to mind very young children (words like 'nursing' and 'Abba'), and I'm not sure they are great at the finer nuances of relationships really (when she was teething my daughter would try and chew my fingers whenever I picked her up and then cry if I took them away).
So maybe we need to preach the gospel to ourselves (but constantly repent of turning *that* into a work).
But no, I don’t conceive of prayer as a work. More a mode of being, maybe?
I've a big tendency to beat myself up, but at the same time don't tend to go in for trying to 'evaluate' my prayer life, to use a phrase I don't particularly like.
I know some people find journalling helpful but I'd be worried I'd find that too introspective.
These days I simply pray and try not to over-think it. I do a lot of over-thinking here instead ... (and elsewhere in 'real life').
Once thing I’ve realized as I’ve read through this thread is that I really don’t think of God the Father as my Father, as a personal father, a father to me. Despite Jesus’s use of abba, thats just not where I go.
I had a great father, whom I loved—and still love years after his death, very much—and with whom my siblings and I had a very good relationship. So it’s not any reservations or problems connected to the idea of “father.” It’s just not how I “hear” “Father” when used in reference to the First Person of the Trinity.
I mainly understand “Father,” and “Son” as being about how the First and Second Persons of the Trinity relate to each other—the “Source,” as it were, and the “eternally begotten.” To the extent I think of “Father” outside of relationship to “Son,” I probably think of something more like the Norse All-Father—the creator/source of all creation.
If that in someway impairs my relationship with the First Person of the Trinity, I’m not aware of it.
I tend to hold that together with the personal - in the sense of feeling that God would also be a more 'real' (in the Great Divorce sense) of my own father.
[Although I believe that there are debates as to how much the notion of All-Father was borrowed from Roman or Christian sources and whether all-father in context actually means creator of all.]
Perhaps this is when I admit I’ve never read The Great Divorce.
Thankfully, God was in Christ reconciling the world—including me—to himself.
I’m definitely neurodivergent and very weird as well (not the same thing) and knowing/trusting that Jesus/God understands me even if no one, or hardly anyone else does, helps. I struggle with being human. Knowing that He knows all of that, knows and understands every thought I have every nanosecond, all of my weirdness, whatever makes me me, no matter what’s going on with it, embracing me, even though He is human (fully God, fully man), more intimately than anyone else does, comforts me.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
Oh, it’s awesome!! ❤️
I read The Great Divorce years ago and am sure I've missed some of the important points. Does anyone think there would be any mileage in a separate book thread?