By Elgin Quan
Elgin is a graduate of Western Seminary, spiritual formation disciple, AAPI community worker, on mission for church and social issues, learner by day, writer by night. She is wife to one, mother of two, and grateful grandma to two.
It would be a mistake to understand Jesus outside the inter-relatedness of the Trinity. Jesus is not God. He is the second person of the God head -- Father Son and Holy Spirit.
Nowhere does Jesus operate as an independent but only in relationship to his Father and the Holy Spirit. In that sense, wholeness is the reality where parts answer to every other part. No part exists independently from other parts. As we detach ourselves from wholeness that pathway is never sustainable. Jesus was never detached. He and his Father are one .
I am reminded that the word “religion”. At its roots means re “again”. And ligios, “connection”.
Like ligaments our bodies as our soul, are all connected. Religion is meant to offer us support to connect again what has been separated - souls separated from Creator God.
I began to further understand this concept of wholeness from reading Daniel Migliore Faith Seeking Understanding and relating this to my family and current role as grandparent.
As Migliore points out on a divine level, we cannot understand or adequately describe the triune life its richness and self-differentiation, but we can confess that God, like Family is triune. God the Father plans and designs, God the Son implements, God the Holy Spirit empowers. Like God, the essence of Family, plans and designs, implements, and empowers. Like God, Family encompasses past, present and future. It includes suffering and death. It is multigenerational. It gives renewal, birth and life.
We can also confess that God, like Family is triune, in that it exists to be essentially self- giving, with a love whose strength embraces vulnerability. As Family’s goal is to live for something greater than oneself, it may be said that Grandparents are the foundation, parents are the center, grandchildren are the driver. The Triune God, like the family is a our model of Wholeness, complete and without flaw.
Let me know if you would like further thoughts on this.
[This is Cecil: please leave comments below to respond. I’ll be the first!]