We bless you, O God, most high and Lord of mercy. You are always doing great and inscrutable things with us, glorious and wonderful, and without number. You grant us sleep for rest from our infirmities, and repose from the burdens of our much toiling flesh. We thank you, for you have not destroyed us with our sins, but have continued to love us; and though we were sunk in despair, you have raised us up to glorify your power. Therefore, we implore you incomparable goodness. Enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise up our minds from the heavy sleep of indolence. Open our mouth and fill it with your praise, that we may be able without distraction to sing and confess that you are God, glorified in all and by all, the eternal Father, with your only begotten Son, and your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen. Prayer of Saint Basil

The words change, but the general gist doesn’t: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother, Son, and Life-giving Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Triune. Trinity. God as community and communion, always one and always internally relational among three Persons. Who God is can’t be reduced to an abstract concept or a list of attributes: God is fluid, dancing rather than cast in stone or gold. Anyone who claims to understand the nature of God fully, even after encountering God on a Damascus road or in a dream, is practicing a particular kind of religious self-deception. God cannot be reduced to any one person’s understanding – or any one faith tradition’s creed.

My best attempt to catch a glimpse of the Mystery is an analogy. Having two sons has shaped the person I have grown into. I’m not defined by my role as mother, but I have been changed by it in ways I cannot articulate. They are both separate individuals, unique and not defined by their being sons. But there is delight in our connection, and life is richer for it.

If that is true of me, it’s true of so many others. If it’s true of so many of us, how much truer it must be of God.

Perhaps I’m better off to open myself up to the mystery rather than try to explain it…