is really the best response to the Genesis 22 story in which God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac [link to text]. I read that once, and was impressed that biblical scholar James Crenshaw was willing to admit just how offensive this story really is. What sort of God would ask such a thing? Especially after Abraham, in total obedience to God’s command in Genesis 12:1-4 [link], had already given up his home, his family and everything he had ever know to follow God to a new, but totally unspecified land. I don’t blame people for rejecting the story outright, “Why should we listen to a god that makes such inhuman demands?”

The thing is, ever since our daughter was born three years ago, we feel like those sorts of demands are made of us on a pretty regular basis. “Leave her with strangers so you can work another job that barely pays the day care costs.” “Why are you still nursing that child? Put her on formula so you can go back to work.” Who has time to even hold babies anymore or play with their children, when both parents have to work all day, come home, dish out some sort of meal, and then catch up with the laundry and pay the bills before they go to bed? When I look at the ways children are raised in this society, it scares me! Could it be, that we, like Abraham, are sacrificing our children in small ways every day?

My sisters and I were the first generation of latch key kids. Since both my parents had to work to pay the mortgage and make the car payments on time, we were left to fend for ourselves. Instead of mom greeting us with homemade cookies when we came home from school, it was reruns of “Little House on Prairie” and Hostess Twinkies. And because both my parents had to work late some nights, sometimes we had to make our dinner too: which usually meant a jar of spaghetti sauce over noodles. How much worse it is today!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating a return to traditional family values or forcing women back into the home. But I can’t help feeling that American families are under attack - we no longer have the time or resources to provide a healthy home environment that actually nutures our children. What scares me the most is not that we are blind to the ramifications of this, but that we seem unable to find solutions. Many parents I know are deeply troubled by the effects of today’s lifestyle on their children, but feel trapped by economic realities beyond their control.

In a recent discussion of Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book This Land is Their Land [link] aired on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” [link] the commentator suggested that middle class families are to blame for their plight: isn’t over consumption responsible for the financial problems of the middle class, especially all that overextended credit?

While its true that my generation, Gen-X, was brought up believing we would inherit all the prosperity enjoyed by our parents, its not necessarily true that we consume more than them - all that prosperity is increasingly out of our reach. As Ehrenreich says, the corporate profits once shared with employees are now being channeled to a very small minority (.01%) at the top of the corporate ladder, while the rest of us on the lower rungs are left to fend for ourselves. The rising cost of living paired with the stagnation in wages, despite a 75% increase in worker productivity, means that today’s parents are forced to work significantly more hours than their parents, not just two jobs per household, but three just to make ends meet.

Recently John and I watched Bill Moyer’s “Journal” on PBS [link], in which experts discussed the effects of the economy on middle class families. Not only are we earning half of what the previous generation earned, today’s minimum wage is $5.85 as compared to $9.85 if we take inflation into account,

For more on the minimum wage and its effect on the middle class, including Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori’s response [link here]

we no longer receive employee benefits, and are forced to shoulder those costs ourselves. But since the cost of health insurance, retirement funds and education, have sky rocketed in the last decade, many of us, John and myself included, simply can’t afford health insurance, much less any kind of retirement! It was one thing back in the 90s for single twenty-somethings to complain about “McJobs” [link to definition], living on minimum wage without health insurance, but its quite another thing for those of us now trying to raise families to survive in a financial climate thats being compared to the greed of the Gilded Age a century ago [link], the gross inequities of which produced the soup lines of the Great Depression.

In reaction to these criticisms I’ve heard the rebuttal, “stop complaining, and instead of making excuses, take responsibility for your problems: there are no free handouts.” Yes, its true that some of us Gen-Xers were slackers in our twenties, but as delayed adolescence passed, and we finally got serious about our futures, we’ve found that no matter how much we play by the rules, we just can’t win. There are too many odds against us - if the student loan debt doesn’t sink us, you can bet the credit card fees will! Especially since credit card debt for middle-income families is soaring — up 75% to $5,031 between 1989 and 2001 (according to a report by Demos, a non-partisan public policy organization). [USA Today] “Middle-class families are using credit cards to fill in a gap between their income and costs,” says Tamara Draut, director of the economic opportunity program at Demos. “It’s more about maintaining their standard of living than frivolous consumption.” There’s something seriously wrong when a family with a $70,000 annual income admits, “we used credit cards to pay for diapers, food and school stuff.” [link to article in USA Today]

When Bill Moyers asked his guest Holly Sklar “why do we put up with it?” she responded, “everyone is afraid to loose their job, whether you’re trying to unionize… or the company is threatening to outsource, you now add to this everyone is terrified to loose their job, because they have health insurance through their job… it’s a much harder context in which to ask for higher wages.” In today’s workplace, we don’t have permission to say “no” to our employers’ demands; especially when constant downsizing makes us anxious that we could be the next cut, and you’re living just one paycheck away from the bill collectors knocking at your door. Is it any wonder then that the voices of our children get lost in the daily rush to get to work on time?

Like Bill Moyers, we usually end up blaming the greedy corporate heads, who really do seem to be benefiting at our expense. But isn’t it a bit more complex than that? Why, in a democratic society, don’t we demand more of our government and politicians?

That’s precisely the point: when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham didn’t object (at least not at first) because in Abraham’s day it was normal to sacrifice children. In his world people believed that the laws governing property and inheritance were dictated by the gods and those gods insisted that only one son could inherit. Thus when God repeatedly promised Abraham that his descendants would receive a great inheritance, Abraham assumed without question that it would happen according to those rules. Since Abraham had more than one son, he thought he had to sacrifice one of them. Therefore he sent Ishmael, his first son, into exile, which in those days meant certain starvation and death. But since sacrificial systems have a way of demanding new victims, it eventually turned on the one it was supposed to benefit, demanding the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham’s favorite son, the one who was supposed to inherit everything!

Little has changed. As Paul Nuechterlein says on his website, “For we still practice child sacrifice, do we not? But the cultural difference is that it is no longer part of religious ritual. Our modern versions of sacred violence are acts of violence we sanction with causes or transcendent values we hold as godlike.” To break free, our minds must begin to question the false logic of their claims. “The unveiling of sacred violence means the unveiling of our false gods.” [link] As long as we, as a people, continue to believe that our present economy is the source of our happiness, our security, our future, we will be pitted against our loved ones. It makes too many demands on us, insisting, for instance, that we sacrifice time with our children.

Abraham actually traveled three days to Mt. Moriah, the place God designated for the sacrifice. He had plenty of time to think things over. In the moment he raised the knife to sacrifice his son, his eyes were finally opened to the monstrous reality of what he was about to do. Likewise, after years of trying to keep pace with all the economic demands on us, John and I found ourselves exhausted and demoralized. We finally realized that whether we played by the rules or not, we would never get ahead. As Holly Sklar says, the American Dream is really working in reverse, trapping middle class families in a vicious cycle from which they are unable to escape. So instead of pursuing three incomes, we’ve decided to limit our work load. Family and friends sometimes criticize us for this choice and we still feel the economic pressure, but we are now thoroughly convinced that if we gave into the demands of those false gods the quality of our life would actually be diminished. We’d rather have time to garden, and to take walks in the evenings. Instead of eating fast food or frozen dinners every night, we’d rather invest our time and resources in relationships, entertaining friends and family. Instead of day care, we plan to schedule play dates, in which parents and not just children can network with each other. It will certainly be challenging, and our credit score may suffer a bit, but already we’ve noticed an important difference as the focus of our family has shifted: we’ve broken out of the isolated struggle to survive that so many families experience and find ourselves surrounded by a loosely knit community of friends. This feels like a much healthier environment in which to raise our children.

Likewise, its no accident that its only after refusing to sacrifice Isaac that Abraham is finally able to receive the blessing - the inheritance - that God had been promising him all along. (Paul Nuechterlein). It wasn’t enough for Abraham to leave the land he had known. Just as all our strategies to get ahead financially or even our attempts to simplify our lives will prove futile, until we like Abraham free our minds, so that instead of listening to the gods which demand sacrifice, we can hear the generous and compassionate voice which promises abundant life and prosperity for all god’s children.

John and I can say that we’ve experienced more of the simple pleasures of life in the last year than in the previous years of our marriage. We’re getting better at seeing through the false promises and focusing on what really matters. We don’t feel as defeated by the economic system as we used to, because we’ve learned from experience that it just can’t deliver all the goods. In the process we hope to discover the positive ways in which God truly blesses us and our children. - Sue Wright

On Saturday, June 7th my spouse John and I took our three year old daughter to march in the Central New York Pride Parade in downtown Syracuse. [link here] It was a historic moment for the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York, being the first time we visibly took part in the parade.

[watch the Episcopal Church at 2008 Pride Parade]

Three parishes from the diocese marched behind the “Episcopal Church Welcomes You” banner:

Grace Church, Syracuse, NY [link]

Trinity Memorial Church, Binghamton, NY [link]

St. Paul’s Cathedral, Syracuse, NY [link]

Dean Tom Luck from the Cathedral,who wore his vestments in the 90 degree temps, was consistently harassed by conservative Christians with megaphones: “That priest is a sinner.” “The Episcopal Church is an abomination!” “That priest is an abomination! Hey, Reverend Reprobate…” In that moment I think we all realized just how important it was for all the welcoming churches, regardless of denomination, to march in solidarity. Otherwise, the dominant Christian presence would have been one of condemnation and harassment.

The hecklers with megaphones were spaced out along the entire parade, and cast a pal of hatred over the event. But what struck me more than the hecklers, was the overall atmosphere of genuine hospitality and compassion that pervaded the Pride community itself. Now that I think about it, John, Anna and I were the ones being welcomed…

In Matthew 9:9-26 [link to reading] Jesus invites a tax collector, a person who is considered an abomination by many of the Jews to be his disciple. He also hangs out with “sinners” and goes to dine with them in their homes. When the Pharisees question Jesus about why he’s eating with tax collectors and sinners, his reply is:

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

When we read this bit, we assume that Jesus is siding with all the outcasts of society. And in fact, he is, but he is also being ironic in his superb sort of way, intentionally challenging our understanding of all such divisions.

Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 [link here for entire reading]:

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of god and not burnt-offerings.

Hosea was one of the 8th Century Old Testament prophets, who with Amos, Isaiah and Micah protested the hypocrisy of the rich and prosperous Jews who considered themselves righteous because they performed all the necessary sacrifices in the Temple, but who at the same time exploited the weaker members of their society. For more on the theme of “mercy not sacrifice” in the eighth century prophets [link here].

Jesus was deeply influenced by the protests of the eighth century prophets, but his approach to the problem was very different. The prophets used direct confrontation, including accusations and threats, to demand the people return to their covenant relationship with God. The prophets insisted that the people had broken the covenant by violating God’s command to care for the outcasts and the most afflicted members of society and had turned instead to ritual sacrifice. And indeed, sacrificial systems create divisions, righteous vs. sinners, clean vs. unclean, pure vs. contaminated, which are often used to exclude those who are different, the poor and the sick. However, by pointing the finger of accusation at the so called “righteous,” the Old Testament prophets tended to reinforce those same divisions. Isn’t it true that divisions between “us” and “them” allow “us” to judge others while safely maintaining our distance from “them”?

Jesus, on the other hand, engaged in relationship. By dining with “sinners” and healing the outcasts, Jesus participated in very intimate acts which brought him into close physical contact with people who were shunned as ritually unclean, and very likely rendered him unclean in the process. In those days dining was a far more intimate act than it is today with our white tablecloths and individual place settings. People reclined on cushions, sometimes leaning on each other in the hot climate. They used their fingers to eat from the same bowls which they passed from one person to the next.

Jesus’ acts of healing, several of which occur in this reading, were equally intimate. Instead of using instruments to poke and prod, Jesus touched the wounds of the sick with his fingers. Scholars assume that Jesus was being over dramatic, but this is more to do with the modern tendency to equate healing with one-sided acts of mercy. For the ancient Israelites, mercy meant much more, but interpretation has been lost in layers of translation.

Our contemporary understanding is based on the Greek translation:

ἔλεος (Greek): mercy, kindness or good will towards the miserable and the afflicted, joined with a desire to help them [link to definition]

But the word that Hosea used, which Jesus would have repeated, was

חסד hesed (Hebrew): mercy [link to definition]

For the ancient Israelites mercy, was far more than an act of kindness, it involved the closest form of relationship. Unlike our definition of mercy as a one sided act, hesed was inherently two sided… [Link to Ben Witherington III on hesed]

Jesus’ acts of mercy actually rekindled relationships which the people had ignored for centuries by systematically separating themselves from the weak, the lowly and the outcasts. This had a ripple effect which was far more effective than all the fiery language of the prophets. For instance, as Jesus dined with “sinners” a ruler of the synagogue, the very paradigm of the sort of “righteous” person the prophets would have condemned, entered the house and asked for Jesus’ help. Not only did the ruler knowingly expose himself to supposed contamination, he then took Jesus to his home, defiling it as well. This supposedly “righteous” person actually insisted that Jesus touch his daughter who has just died, so that she will live. Jesus rather than refuse to help him, as we would expect based on Jesus’ own words, rose without hesitation and followed him.

When he arrived at the ruler’s house the people gathered there had already started the ritual mourning. Jesus however did something totally outrageous, just as the ruler asked - he picked up the hand of the dead girl! At that time, touching a dead body was the worse form of defilement. The result, however, was totally miraculous as the girl returned to life. Could it be that Jesus exposed death as just another one of those false divisions?

What is striking in this reading, is that all of Jesus’ acts involved touching and close proximity, which
rather than reinforce old divisions or create new ones, crossed all such boundaries. Whatever your perspective may be, Jesus’ actions ignore any recognizable categories of sinfulness, and actually free us from those divisions, allowing us to reconnect with each other. He did this through the simple act of touch, an action free of any form of condemnation, which actually invited those around him to do the same and resulted in the healing of the people involved.

This is most evident when, on the way to the ruler’s house, a woman who had been excluded from the Temple for twelve years because she had an incurable flow of blood, touched Jesus’ garment. This was a totally scandalous act, because her touch would have contaminated Jesus, except for the fact that he is already unclean. And indeed Jesus acted surprised, but he immediately recognized the significance of what had just happened. By reaching out and touching Jesus, she had in that moment escaped all the internalized condemnation she had suffered for so many years. The fact that she was able to give herself permission to touch him, is truly miraculous. And better yet, now that she had crossed the boundaries of division, and understood the power of mercy as a two-sided relationship, she was in a position to touch others, and rekindle those long forgotten covenant relationships.

After the Pride parade, the participants gathered for a festival outside the Everson Museum. [Watch on YouTube] It was crowded under the tents, as all of us, hot and sweaty from the march, sought protection from the midday sun. As we ate hot dogs and were handed free popcorn and water bottles, there was no doubt in my mind that we were participating in the messianic banquet. Whenever we venture out beyond the self-prescribed boundaries of our separate communities and open ourselves to intimate contact with each other, we set in motion that same ripple effect which, without angry words or accusations, dissolves the divisions which continue to threaten the unity of our church. We may even realize that there are no sinners, that not one of us is really righteous, but that we all share a common need for healing, which may only come through the touch of mercy given one to the other. -Sue Wright

I’m gonna be honest, I’ve always found the doctrine of the trinity a bit much to stomach. How did a statement at the very end of Matthew’s gospel [link to Matthew 28:16-20] and a couple of other references in Paul’s letters develop into such an abstract formula, the precise wording of which has historically led to all sorts of blood shed?

When, at the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says farewell to the disciples, telling them to go out and baptize “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of of the Holy Spirit,” do you think he had all that abstract theology in mind? I doubt the disciples were thinking, “oooh, that is so homoouosios,” or “wow, that was really hypostatic!”

homoouosios: (Greek) one being [read more]

hypostasis: (Greek) three persons [read more]

hypostatic union: fully human and fully divine

Even in divinity school, when I took an entire class on the trinity and learned the meaning of those terms, I continued to have my doubts. No matter how much I may understand intellectually the ins and outs of trinitarian theology, I wonder, is it getting in the way of something more immediate, more real?

For instance, one theologian I happen to really like says that “baptism into the triune name” demonstrates that “beginning the Christian pilgrimage does not simply mean to respond to God’s summons but to enter into communion with the triune God.” (Miroslav Volf, God’s Life in the Trinity, 3) But let me ask, does this sort of language sound like anything that any of us in or out of the church have ever experienced? What exactly does it mean to commune with the triune God? And what does this have to do with baptism?

Rather than approach this question from some sort of theoretical basis, it may be more useful to look at the historical and social origins of trinitarian language. What’s interesting about Matthew 28:16-20, is that the trinitarian formula appears in the context of baptism, the first ritual to be performed by the early Christians.

In the ancient world, baptism was always done in the name of “A” god. When Jesus commanded the disciples to baptize in three names it was totally unheard of, especially for the Jews, whose strict monotheism insisted that their god was the one and only god of all creation. In fact, this was one of the most important distinctions between the Jews and other religions. Jewish monotheism arose out of the revolutionary character of the biblical narrative which diverges from other ancient mythology by refusing to worship not only multiple gods, but specifically gods which require the sacrifice of a victim. “The Bible rejects the gods created by sacralized violence,” and exposes the demand for victims “as a purely human abomination.” [see Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightening, 119-121].

This contrast is evident in the violence of many ancient mythologies, in which gods rose to power by slaying other gods. For instance, in ancient Babylonian mythology, the upstart god Marduk rose to power after he slew the older goddess Tiamat. In a world steeped in violence there are always new gods rising to power. And sadly, little has changed since then. For instance, during the Cold War the nuclear bomb was exalted in a sense, actually establishing peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but only after the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Or today we could say that Americans have replaced the god of industry with the god of consumerism. What is remarkable about the Jews, is that throughout the entire course of their history they stuck with one god and in the process the Jews came to understand that their god actually sides with the victims of the violent gods!

But this created a problem for the Jews. They evolved a concept of divinity which maintained an absolute division between their god and the gods of sacrificial violence. [Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightening, 121] That is, over the course of their long relationship with Yahweh they came to understand that God has no part in human violence. But over time the commandment not to shed the blood of victims was misconstrued as a strict demand to separate themselves from any form of contamination by those other gods, leading them to commit the very crimes they were supposedly avoiding: the condemnation of others.

Jesus appeared to be just another upstart in the pantheon of pagan gods. When the first Christians began baptizing in three names, it appeared they were violating the separation between God and sacrificial violence and reintroducing paganism. [Girard, Satan Falling, 121-122] The most extreme monotheists went so far as to insist that perpetrators be immediately stoned to death. This is illustrated in the Acts of the Apostles, when Stephen, the first Christian martyr, is executed:

When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. [Acts 7:54-58b]

As he died, Stephen repeated Jesus’ words on the cross: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” [Acts 7:60]

Why, when it was so dangerous, did the Christians insist on three names instead of one? They must have experienced something so powerful that they were willing to risk death. New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado says that the early Christians must have had repeated encounters with “the exalted and risen Jesus including visions of him sharing the glory of God and participating so directly and fully in God’s glory and majesty that their early devotional practices were the only appropriate response.” [Hurtado, One God, One Lord, 117]

But again the language “exalted and risen Jesus,” “the glory and majesty of God”? sounds like the same old tired religious language. My response is: someone please break this down for me! Or as my friend Sharon used to say, “Could you translate, I don’t speak that language.”

Hurtado seems to think that the disciples saw visions like Stephen’s of Jesus and God sitting on a cloud in heaven with the Holy Spirit hovering just over head. Obviously all the great renaissance artists thought so too, but for some reason that explanation strikes me as kind of hokey. Not to mention: how am I supposed to commune with the three of them when they’re hanging out in heaven? The gap seems a bit too wide…

Hurtado actually points us in an interesting direction. Looking at Paul’s conversion experience Hurtado claims that “Paul…’saw’ the crucified Jesus in a body radiant with the bright glory of God.” Whatever Paul experienced, it was so powerful that it transformed him from one of those extremists who persecuted Christians, into their most passionate spokesperson. What’s significant is that this was not an isolated incident. Indeed, Paul’s conversion was framed by two other events, which brought Paul face to face with what could be described as the “triune” God.

Its probably no accident that Paul’s vision sounds similar to Stephen’s. And in fact, Luke, the author of Acts, says that Paul witnessed Stephen’s death. He may even had a role in it, since Paul himself admits that he wanted to destroy the Christians [Galatians 1:13]. Shortly after Stephen’s death Paul asked to be sent to Damascus to punish more Christians, possibly intending to stone them too. He never accomplished his task. Instead the very people he intended to arrest, took him into their home and cared for him. In both instances, at Stephen’s death and in the home of the Christians, Paul experienced the act of forgiveness, with the effect that all the rigid walls of his monotheism collapsed as the power of forgiveness literally bowled him over - the gap closed and Paul was drawn into relationship not only with the victims of his intended violence, but with what could only be described as the triune God. Jesus’ act of forgiveness on the cross, revealed the true nature of the One God, not by excluding sacrificial violence, but by freeing us from the need to condemn others.

Sadly, however, it didn’t take long for the Christians to repeat the same mistake. A good deal of blood was shed in the fourth and fifth centuries over the correct interpretation of Jesus’ relationship with the Father. Could it be that the church’s emphasis on trinitarian doctrine has replaced the real life experience of forgiveness: that which freed the first Christians from the violent deadlock of monotheistic thinking?

Even arguments which rely primarily on scripture to prove or disprove the doctrine of the trinity ultimately fail because they are unable to reproduce the revelatory experience which led the first Christians to proclaim a triune God.

For a fun debate of the trinity on YouTube including hip hop [Link here]

So after all this discussion, what does it mean for us here and now? Is it possible that like the Jews, who tried to protect themselves from the gods of violence through rigid divisions, our society erects structures to prevent people from getting too close?

After all, proximity with others who are different from us, all too often leads to conflict. With the result that in North America, the privacy of the individual has become for all intents and purpose a sort of sacred order. We don’t dare talk to each other in the check out line at the grocery store or in the mall.

Jesus’ forgiveness on the cross bridges this gap in human relationships. Without forgiveness, human beings have no choice but to rely on some sort of rules of separation, rules which inevitably alienate us from each other, and even from God. Forgiveness frees us, at least momentarily, from the need for rigid divisions because there is no reason to protect ourselves from the violent response of the other, because forgiveness never lashes back. Instead it invites us to let go of OUR violence of exclusion and enter into proximity with each other, it allows us to love.

I like to imagine that when the early Christians welcomed someone into community through the ritual of baptism, the power of that love flooded the empty and unbridgeable space between people, a gulf which previously had been full of isolation and alienation.

It must have been similar to that feeling which overwhelms people when they first fall in love, something so powerful that some are willing to die for it. Except that in the case of romantic love, those first ecstatic feelings all too often give way to distrust and resentment, leading eventually to conflict and even to divorce. On the other hand,

the unconditional nature of Jesus’ forgiveness can remove all barriers, but only if we accept it into our relationships, over and over again. When we allow the act of forgiveness to truly penetrate our awareness, all the reasons we perceive others as a threat to our ways of doing things, suddenly dissolve. We don’t have to feel threatened by the person at the cash register or in the car that just cut us off at the intersection. We may even feel a connection with that person. This is the reason for baptism in three names: in an ever repeating act of forgiveness it brings us into relationship with those we would otherwise exclude.

The last thing I want to share is a personal story:

I had a really nasty argument with a very close friend. Our relationship was becoming more and more conflicted as we were unable to remain close without becoming jealous and competitive with each other. It seemed the only choice was to put some distance between us. Somehow we must have known that wasn’t the right thing to do, for one of us, and I can’t remember which, forgave the other. And in that moment I had the most profound sense that god was present with us. It was a mutual experience. All the divisions collapsed - those between heaven and earth, god and humanity, but most importantly between the two of us.

It was a moment of unexpected transformation, possibly of the sort that the first Christians experienced when they realized that the man they had all condemned to death had forgiven them. In trying to communicate this experience to others, I’ve found that the name “God” just isn’t enough. I guess I’ve finally gained some understanding of what my class on the trinity couldn’t teach me. -Sue Wright