God as Love

Day 3: Talk 1: GOD AS LOVE (GOD AS TRINITY). Retreat to the FMAs, Bellefonte Outreach, Shillong.

Most of us are afraid of God. We have been taught to be afraid of God.

Negative images of God. Unhelpful images of God: He is there upstairs; He is white; He is male.

Imagination is as important as knowledge. Or even more.

God is dynamism itself. Some of us think that God is a static concept. That He is an idea. God is a He is dynamic person/being, He is dynamism itself. Being itself. Infact, a Trinity of Three Persons.

Our God is a Family, a Community. God is Relationship itself. God is Inter-relatedness, Intrinsic Inter-connectedness.

Every prayer starts and ends with the invocation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to remind us that God is for us, not against us (Father), God is with us, Emmanuel (Christ), and God is within us, Antaryamin (Spirit).

Other names for God who is Trinity: One, Two, Three of God. Infinity, Imminence, Intimacy. 

When we say God is Trinity, we mean, “God is love.” Totally and absolutely love. Only love. There is no evil in God, no revengeful attitudes or anger, no pettiness of mind but only a large-heartedness that we call unconditional love, unfailing love.

God does not love you because you are good; but God loves you because God is good, God is love itself.

Meister Eckhart, the fourteenth-century German Dominican mystic puts it wonderfully:

Do you want to know

what goes on in the core of the Trinity?

I will tell you.

In the core of the Trinity

the Father laughs

and gives birth to the Son.

The Son laughs back at the Father

and gives birth to the Spirit.

The whole Trinity laughs

and gives birth to us.

You cannot come closer to God. You are already in union with God. Separation, or being far away, is an illusion. Awareness of it may be lacking. Waking up to this reality is prayer, it is contemplation. Therefore, the only difference is between those who are consciously drawing upon this union and those who are not. (The difference is not between those who are united and those who aren’t.) As the Psalmist himself says, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” (Ps 139:7-8) We’re all united to God, but only some of us know it. Most of us deny it and doubt it. It’s just—frankly—too good to be true. That’s why they call it good news. But it can’t be this good, can it? Yeah, that’s where it gets its name and reputation as good news.

Nothing human can stop the flow of divine love; we cannot undo the eternal pattern even by our worst sin.

God loves you precisely in your obstinate unworthiness, when you’re still a mixture of good and bad, when you’re gloriously in flux. You’re not a perfectly loving person, and God still totally loves you.

You can’t manufacture the union by any right conduct. (You are already in communion objectively.) You can’t make God love you one ounce more than God already loves you right now. You can’t. You can go to church every day for the rest of your life. God isn’t going to love you any more than God loves you right now. You cannot make God love you any less, either—not an ounce less. Do the most terrible thing—steal and pillage, cheat and lie—and God wouldn’t love you less. You cannot change the Divine mind about you! The flow is constant, total, and 100 percent toward your life. God is for you. We can’t diminish God’s love for us. What we can do, however, is learn how to believe it, receive it, trust it, allow it, and celebrate it, accepting Trinity’s whirling invitation to join in the cosmic dance.

That’s why all spirituality comes down to how you’re doing life right now. How you’re doing right now is a microcosm of the whole of your life. How you do anything is how you do everything.