TT 18 - Alison Carduggan Writes...

St Margaret's Newsletter

ALISON CARDUGGAN WRITES - WHAT IS THE TRIUNE GODHEAD WHEN IT'S AT HOME ANYWAY?

I'm sitting at the kitchen table trying to stuff a pheasant with a pigeon that's been stuffed with a quail. Or is it the other way around? Oh dear - perhaps that's why there's a dreadful mess on the plate in front of me and not the sophisticated dish promised by the photograph in the recipe book. If you detect a note of panic in my writing you'd be right. Our dinner guests will be arriving in less than an hour and here I am still trying to thread a pheasant through the eye of a pigeon!

This is how we sometimes feel about God. A small boy I happened across in the church recently asked me "How can God be the father, the son and the holy spirit when that makes him his own Dad who sent himself to earth?!" How indeed?! We might equally well ask "How can God be a kind of ghost even though he is not only very much alive and kicking but quite literally the fons et origo of all creation?" It's enough to make your head spin, isn't it?

Or is it? Well I suppose for those people who constantly seek a rational explanation for everything - you know the type, forever popping the back off the computer to prod around with a screwdriver - it all sounds highly improbable. Well, I'm afraid I have a confession to make - I don't even try to understand. You see, I'm one of those strange people who are prepared to have FAITH in things they can't understand, yes, even something as barmy sounding as the Holy Trinity.

God isn't like a computer. God is so awesome and mega-powerful he's like all the computers in the world put together and a bit more. How can the likes of you and me be expected to understand that?

WE'RE NOT EXPECTED TO - THAT'S THE POINT!

And this is where faith comes in: faith that when there is only one set of footprints behind me in the sand it is because my father is carrying me. Faith that when I call out into the darkness and hear no reply it is because He is considering my prayer carefully. Faith that when things, or people suddenly crop up in your life that you weren't expecting, and who aren't always welcome, they have been sent by the Lord to test and thus strengthen this Faith.

And so I return to my pheasant. Somehow, with a soothing glass of wine, the calming strains of Allegri's Miserere, and a few words of encouragement from The Man in Black, I've meanaged to squeeze the quail into the pigeon and most of the pigeon into the pheasant and what's still peeping out I've secured with string. It might not look very elegant but it will be nice and sustaining and that's what being a good Christian is all about.