In Sunday School, we’re studying the Trinity.  It’s an interesting topic but what has surprised me the most is how everyone else seems so confused about and uncomfortable with the idea of the Trinity.  I keep thinking: What’s the big deal? It’s one in three, and three in one.  What’s so hard about that?

When talking about the various ways people have tried to explain the Trinity, the pastor didn’t even mention the one that I grew up with: water.  To me, water is the perfect metaphor for the Trinity.  Water exists in three distinct forms: water vapor, liquid water, and ice.  Vapor is not liquid is not ice, but all three are water.  It fits the “Shield of the Trinity” illustration that the pastor used.  God the Father is not Jesus is not the Holy Spirit, but all three are God.  It even has a nice intuitive fit.  For example, gaseous water vapor is like the Holy Spirit in that it is usually depicted as a cloud of sorts, like a ghost.  Liquid water is perhaps water’s most natural, most basic form, the form that all others come from.  In that way it is like God the Father.  And Jesus seems obviously the solid form of God, just as ice is the solid form of water.  Makes sense to me, but I now realize that it doesn’t make sense to everyone.

I wonder if my background in science fiction and fantasy is part of why the idea of the Trinity is so easy for me to accept and understand.  The genre is chock-full of beings who can exist in multiple forms; it's also well acquainted with beings who are one person made up of separate people.  So, as a SF&F fan, I am very comfortable with both of those concepts.

Sure, in our daily lives we don’t know many people who can exist in different forms or who are comprised of a number of people.  But that makes sense to me too.  It makes sense that the nature of God would be strange and not like what we see everyday.  The nature of God is not meant to be in accordance with our everyday, physical existence.  It is not meant to be like everything else we know.  God is by nature at the edge of our understanding and experience.  He is by nature fantastical.  I’m okay with that.  I don’t need or want God to fit into any of my little, human boxes.  

So, one in three, three in one, seems fine to me.