Here's a snippet from my talk this past Friday night at the conference (the conference was phenomenal, by the way!).
If we go back to before "In the Beginning" we find God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit God. They're together in 'the Land of the Trinity' before time. You start talking about 'Trinity' and people start glazing over--it feels like A.P. Christianity, something for scholars or theologians. But Trinity is not A.P. Christianity. It's the very nature of who God is and it's essential to our understanding of the world that God is in his very nature relational, He is a relationship.
And so when he creates, he creates a world that is relational. Animals have pairs, Adam and Eve are in relationship, and of course there's the perfect un-broken relationship with God. But even deeper than that, we find that everything's relational: people and bodies are a relationship of organs, bones, tissue, and synapses. Press deeper and organs are a relationship of cells. Press deeper and cells are a relationship of parts like the nucleus, mitochondria and other things I've forgotten since 10th grade biology class. Press deeper and everything is made up of atoms, which is a relationship of protons and electrons.
And so all creation is relational like God is relational--and so all of creation points to the very nature of who God is. And in Eden, where we were made to live, every single relationship was one-hundred percent friction free. Paradise is the land of perfect relationships--between God and people, people and each other, and people and nature. Everyone is unique without getting annoying, mosquitoes don't bite, and we walk with God.
When you read Genesis 3, the Great and Terrible Exchange we call 'the fall,' relationships disintegrate 360 degrees. We run and hide from God, we run and hide from each other (then blame each other), we are no longer in harmony with nature, and the result is exile from the place we were made to live and ultimately death. Now, cells multiply uncontrollably and create cancers; guilt, shame, pride and anxiety hamper our freedom to relate; and we no longer instinctively recognize God as our good Father.
We are now born Orphans in the Land of the Ruins. What we call 'us' is in actuality the cumulative result of billions of relationships throughout the course of our lives, both natural ones (i.e. our physical bodies) and emotional ones (i.e. our parents). In place of billions of relationships that were 100% friction-free, we are now the result of billions of relationships that are stunted, hampered, and broken.
Not that everything is as bad as it possibly could be; it's just that nothing is as glorious as it was once meant to be.
2 comments:
Alex, I have always ALWAYS loved a little reflection on the Trinity and how that relationship is the image in which we were made. Where would I be were it not for Deddo?
Also, I wanted to thank you for this post. While I have often enjoyed reflecting on the nature of creation and the relationships inherent within, I had never gotten to the point of recognizing the relationships inherent down to the very core of us biologically. Thanks for sharing about that. It's exciting to think about it that way.
thanks, kelsey! i think it my job to get as much deddo out to the rest of the world as possible... this post and my article online are filled with deddo-isms!
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