Trinities

 It is Trinity Sunday today…and it is beautiful here in this part of the Maritimes.  Stunning, really…at least, insofar as I understand that.  It is warm enough to not have a jacket on and cool enough to not get hot when you walk; the sky is nothing but a wide blue invitation; and the textures of nature are busy about shaking free from the last vestiges of dormancy and stretching their freshness toward the brilliant new day.

I knew that I wanted to go over to the Public Gardens this morning.  It is one of my favorite places, rain or shine, truth be told…though it is especially welcoming on days like this.  I wanted to go there to feel both embraced and set free; I wanted to steep in the wakening glory of its beauty; I wanted to be still and to notice, to feel, to sense, the different kinds of trinities that come together there…

Trinities of bird and branch and shadow; texture, hue, and sound; bend, path, and cradle; living and dying and waiting; apartness, a part of, and whole; azalea, tulip, dandelion; resident, tourist, wanderer; peace, letting go, and groundedness...

All of these different combinations, different qualities, aspects, appearances, working together to make a place where people gather, sit, talk, dance, sing, walk, cry, hold hands, hold canes, push chairs, skip, sip coffee, have lunch on a bench, and dribble ice cream down their front without a care in the world.  It is a space that can hold a diversity: of life; of activity; of beauty, emotion, reality.

So too--and much more--the space of faith in which I live and move and have being thanks to the Trinity that will be honored especially at Mass today; the Trinity I mark myself with, bless myself with, daily; The Trinity of mystery, grace, and challenge; The Trinity that beckons, receives, and journeys with; A Trinity of Love, of Love, of Love.