On this Trinity Sunday, Marianne Williamson's basic approach to our national problems reminds me of traditional trinitarian doctrine. I mean, when I was a kid in catechism class, the mystery of the Holy Trinity seemed like one of those word-problems I found so difficult in arithmetic. I wondered, how can there be three divine persons in one God? Was it 3+ 1= 1? Or was it 3 Ã · 1 = 1? I was confused.
Williamson's basic approach to politics presents a similar quandary. Her basic math problem is: How can we solve our myriad national problems? There seem to be so many. However, like what I heard in catechism class, her solution remains theological. But it goes like this 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1 = One.
What she means is that we really have only a single problem. It's extremely personal, but at the same time very political and highly theological. It's our relationship with God (though we might with good reason reject that particular word as culturally debased). Williamson observes that (whatever name we might prefer) until we get our God-problem straightened out, all those other difficulties will continue to plague us and threaten our very survival.
That simple but profound spiritual insight is what distinguishes Williamson from other Democratic candidates for president. It's that ecumenical, all-inclusive spirituality that separates her from Republican Christianists. Specifically, it calls us to profoundly correct our perception of reality from that of the "world" based on fear and greed to a divine perception based on love and compassion.
Think, for instance, about our endless political troubles. Internationally, they're based on the conviction that we are surrounded by enemies radically different from us. They are so threatening that we must spend billions each day -- yes, nearly $2 billion every 24 hours -- to protect ourselves against the likes of Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Yemen(!), ISIS, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and against immigrants and refugees from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico.
Domestically, politicians want us to think that we're threatened not only by all those foreigners, immigrants and refugees, but by what the Clintons once termed "super-predators" who tend to be black or brown, by LGBTQQIA individuals, and by poor people in general. That's why we end up imprisoning a greater percentage of our population than any other country -- and that doesn't even include the immigrants and refugees in our border concentration camps and baby jails, or those in the black sites (sic!) we maintain across the globe.
No wonder we anesthetize ourselves to forget it all. So, we consume drugs like guns, alcohol, pot, amphetamines, other pharmaceuticals, tobacco, our iPhones, pornography, spectator sports, snacking, comfort food, and TV binges. That's quite a list, don't you think? Each item creates its own problem in the personal and familial spheres. It's a never-ending cycle of threat-fear-denial and escape. And it's all-encompassing.
However, according to Williamson, all of that -- the guns, wars, fear of "the other," and narcotization of all sorts -- are simply means of side-stepping our only real problem: God.
And that's what's centralized in today's Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The day's readings call us to face the nature of God straight-on. And it has nothing to do with catechism math. Neither, according to today's biblical selections, is God what we've been taught. God is not a judge, punisher, and torturer. Instead, the passages selected for today invite us to appreciate divine goodness and love for all of humankind, and to use those insights to reduce our countless problems to merely one.
Consider today's readings. (Please read them for yourself here.) They describe for us the three-fold nature of the One we find so problematic. As depicted in the graphic above, she is Mother (Wisdom), Father (Creator), and Child (as revealed in Jesus the Christ). Here's my "translation" of this Trinity Sunday's readings specifically about the nature of God:
PRV 8:22-31
God as Wisdom Itself
Is embodied in all the world.
As feminine and Mother
She is like a skilled craftswoman
Who set the very foundations of the earth
And shores of the seas
All in a spirit of playfulness
Finding special delight in the human race.
PS 8: 4-9
Which is amazingly loved
By the Creator-Father
For whom
All human beings are like angels
Glorious and honorable
Caretakers and rulers of
Wild and domesticated animals
Birds and sea creatures
And whose traditions across the earth
Have always recognized
And loved
The Reality of God.
ROM 5: 1-4
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