Christians believe that God is a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In other words, Christians believe that there is a community life in the reality we call God. To find out what this means we can read the Scriptures. But we can also explore our human experience. If God has created us and our world, and if God is Trinity, then the Trinitarian life of God must be reflected in our human lives in all sorts of ways.
An obvious way is our social nature. We are social beings. We create relationships and we sustain relationships. In fact, without relationships we wither and die emotionally, even physically. John Donne once said that no man is an island unto himself. We cannot survive in isolation. It is in living with others, it is in loving others, that we find meaning and that we become our true selves.
Another way is the power of cooperation. When it comes to a project, a task, an undertaking, the best results are usually achieved when there is cooperation, when people work together as a team. Ask any sports person, any project manager, any government and they will tell you that the team effort is the best effort, it is the most fruitful and successful effort. It is also the effort that gives most satisfaction and fulfilment to all those involved.
Then there is the unity of creation. One of the things we are becoming more aware of today is the way creation functions. The created world is interdependent. One part of it affects another. For example, the cutting down of the rain forests in South America has an impact on climate patterns in Europe and Africa. The laws of nature are finely balanced and when they are allowed to work together in unity and harmony they fulfil their purpose.
And finally, there is this attempt by a woman to describe what trinity means in her life:
“I am a daughter and a wife and mother – three things, yet I am one totality. To my parents, I would always be their child. To my husband, a companion and a mate. To my children, the one who gave them birth and nurtured them till they reached adulthood. I seem to each of them a different person. They each know a different kind of ‘me.’ But I am one, within myself a trinity and each of them finds unity in me.”