The Trinity gets a bum rap these days. Most people equate it with Christian dogma about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – a theology that seems strictly theoretical at best – and irrelevant at worst. But I think it’s useful to ponder how three-ness makes life work. In the world of dimensions, it means moving from a flat plane to the space we all live and move in. In the world of music, it means lifting black dots off of a lined page and becoming a vessel to move these dots into vibration, allowing them to reach our very souls.
The three-ness that I’m fascinated by these days is: truth, goodness, and beauty. Admittedly, these are grandiose terms that seem more at home in an 18th century opera than a 21st century blog, but I don’t think their importance has diminished even if the nomenclature has shifted. By truth, I mean that which is objective about reality; this includes science and technology, most especially. By goodness, I mean all that is subjective about reality; this includes compassion, love, and kindness. And by beauty, I mean all that move the spirit through the handiwork of the Creator or of humans; this includes all of the arts as well as nature. Without any one of the three legs of this “stool,” the stool topples over, proving itself virtually incapable to hold anything up. Without truth, we have no power of reason; without goodness, we have a world of narcissists looking after only themselves; and without beauty, we have a world that quickly becomes soulless. The absence of any of these three would create a world that no one would wish to live in.
This means that the neuroscientist (truth) has just as significant a role as the orchestra member (beauty) who has just as significant a role as the mother (goodness). But this is not what we hear by our politicians – all of whom want us to excel in maths and sciences (truth) for the sake of commerce. Never have I heard mention of excelling in the arts (not since Jackie Kennedy was First Lady) or in the world of compassion and goodness (not since Princess Di died). Yet look at past cultures! What is it we notice about them? Their architecture (beauty), their paintings and music, and perhaps
Perhaps we can re-discover the formative character of trinity, how, in many ways, it’s the basis of life itself – and in so doing, find all the analogous ways that three-ness effects our lives. Then we can start to give beauty the value that it is truly due (for truth and goodness get plenty of air-time already).