The other night, my husband and I listened on the family computer as our son, hundreds of miles from home, DJ'd an alternate-rock radio station. Not quite 14, our son had never been on the radio before; the stint is part of a camp he's attending for high schoolers interested in communications. We could hear how nervous he was, and how joyful, too.For me and Greg, raising our sons means imbuing them with all the love and faith we can, and then offering them opportunities to fly on their own. We strive, most imperfectly, to reflect in our family life the Trinitarian nature of our God.
Unlike Jews and Muslims, Christians do not see God as a solitary figure; God is three co-equal persons in one. God gave His son everything; including His own divinity. When Christ ascended, he left us the Holy Spirit. Each person of God is co-equal, co-powerful, and co-eternal. This Triune God reflects the way we humans thrive; not in isolation, but in community. And I believe it reflects the way God wants us to love our children; to lead them down the paths of their own destinies toward Him.
Every human being who ever lived was willed into existence by this Triune God. His immeasurable love calls us to live in relationship with one another. Like the Trinity, we are distinct persons and yet we are inseparable from one another.
The central truths of our faith are not easy to fathom. Lance McNeel, a Catholic painter from Texas, uses abstract art to illuminate them. (His painting, The Blessed Trinity, is above) "While abstraction does not create the same degree of narrative detail as that found in classical artwork, I believe that it can provide a more powerful image to describe the mysteries that we as humans cannot understand intellectually.".A pastoral letter last year from the United States Conference of Bishops put it this way: "... like the Persons of the Trinity, marriage is a communion of love between co-equal persons, beginning with that between husband and wife and then extending to all members of the family."
And so it was our child, after talking on air about the weather in Maine and his reflections on a Chiddy Bang song he had just discovered, called home.
