Dancing with Trinity: Embracing the Flow of God’s Wisdom

Sunday, June 15, 2025 – Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

When you think about God, what do you imagine God to be like? What is the image in your mind? Do you image God as a white-bearded man sitting on a throne in the sky? Or like the painting of God and Adam by Michelangelo? Or do you lean more toward a “rock of Ages” type of image?

At the Haden Institute Summer Dream & Spirituality Conference earlier this month, I heard a wonderful quote:

God is the name of the blanket we throw over the Mystery to give it shape.”

Let me repeat that: “God is the name of the blanket we throw over the Mystery to give it shape.” You know who said that? Barry Taylor, who used to be a guitar tech for the hard rock band AC/DC!

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, and the church has used the image of Trinity to talk about God since about the 4th century. I have to admit, I was never a big fan of the whole Trinity idea. It never really spoke to me, until I heard Fr. Richard Rohr speak at All Saints’ church in Pasadena, CA back in 2016. His comments on the Trinity were so inspiring that I had to sign up for his conference on the same topic later that year in Albuquerque, NM.

In our readings for today, both Paul’s letter to the Romans and the gospel of John speak about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They touch on ideas about love and truth.

In today’s passage from the Gospel of John, we find Jesus speaking to his disciples about the coming of the Spirit of truth. He tells them that God’s Spirit will “guide you into all the truth” and will only speak what the Spirit hears from God. This short but profound passage invites us into the mystery of the Trinity—not as a dry theological concept, but as a living, dynamic relationship of love, mutuality, and unity.

In his beautiful book The Divine Dance, Fr. Rohr suggests that the Trinity is not a static doctrine to be understood intellectually, but a flow of relationship in which we are invited to participate. He describes the Trinity as a divine dance of love, in which the persons of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—exist not as separate beings but as a unity bound by mutual love and shared truth.

This divine flow is at the heart of today’s passage: the Father gives all that he has to the Son, the Son receives and shares it with the Spirit, and the Spirit guides us into the fullness of this truth. It’s a relational movement, a flowing circle of giving and receiving that never ends.

But here’s a crucial point: this flow of divine love is not distant or exclusive. It’s not just something happening “up there” in heaven. It’s happening here and now, and we are invited into it. We are called to step into the dance, to be part of the flow of love, wisdom, and truth that is the very essence of God.

Now, let’s explore this flow through a lens often overlooked: the feminine imagery of God.

Last month, we celebrated Mother’s Day and today is Father’s Day. But some people can struggle with certain parental images of God if their relationship to their human parents was difficult. When I was getting my doctorate, I told people I was breaking up with God. And I was serious.

But what I was really breaking up with was the toxic image in my head of an abusive Father God who denied me what I longed for because I didn’t live up to God’s expectations.

Throughout Scripture, God is described not only as Father but also in maternal and nurturing terms. In our reading from Proverbs 8, for example, we meet Wisdom, which in biblical Greek is called Sophia—a feminine personification of God’s creative and guiding presence. Wisdom says,

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago… I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race” (Proverbs 8:22, 30-31).

Sophia, or divine Wisdom, evokes an image of God that nurtures, cradles, and guides. She is present at creation, actively participating in the birthing of the universe. Similarly, in the New Testament, Jesus speaks of himself as a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings (Matthew 23:37). Isaiah describes God as a mother comforting her child (Isaiah 66:13) and as a woman in labor, crying out as she brings forth new life (Isaiah 42:14).

These feminine metaphors remind us that God’s love is both fathering and mothering—both strong and tender, protective and nurturing. We lose a great deal when we hold tightly to only one image of God.

When we think about the Trinity in the context of today’s gospel, we can see how this mothering aspect of God’s Wisdom enriches our understanding of the Spirit’s role.

The Spirit of truth, like Sophia, is a guide and a nurturer, gently leading us into deeper understanding and communion with God. God’s Spirit doesn’t demand or coerce but invites and nurtures, helping us grow in love and truth.

This nurturing guidance reflects the unity and mutuality within the Trinity—a unity that embraces both masculine and feminine aspects of God’s being.

And what does this mean for us, practically speaking? It means that the Trinity isn’t just a theological idea to ponder but a model for how we are called to live. In the Trinity, we see a relationship of complete self-giving love, where each person exists not for themselves but for the other. This relational dynamic is a challenge and an invitation for us to embody in our own lives.

Just as the Father shares all with the Son, and the Son with the Spirit, we are called to live lives of generosity, openness, and mutual care.

In a world that often feels divided and fragmented, the Trinity shows us a different way—the way of unity without uniformity, diversity without division. It reminds us that we are all part of the same divine dance, called to move together in harmony, each playing our unique part but always connected to the whole.

So, as we reflect on today’s Gospel, let’s ask ourselves:

How can we step more fully into the divine dance? How can we allow the Spirit of truth to guide us into deeper love, mutuality, and unity? How can we embody God’s wisdom—both strong and tender, fathering and mothering—in our relationships and our communities?

Let us rejoice in the flow of divine love that invites us into this transformative relationship. Let us embrace the Spirit of truth, who nurtures and guides us as Sophia once did, and let us celebrate the God who is both Father and Mother, Creator and Comforter, forever drawing us into the dance of love. Amen.