The dance of love

Here's the sermon I preached at St Mary's Runwell this morning at our joint service for Trinity Sunday:

I wonder whether those of you who are Strictly Come Dancing fans have a particular stand-out moment from the 19 series since 2004. Looking online the Top 10 Strictly moments are either those which provided comedy value - such as Ed Balls doing “Gangnam Style” or Ann Widdecombe being dragged across the floor – or those in which celebrity and dancer best combine – such as Jill Halfpenny’s Jive with her partner Dan in the final of Series 2, which was the first dance to that point to score a perfect 10.

Explaining the idea of the Trinity - three persons, one God - has always been a challenge to priests and preachers. The shamrock is one favourite illustration - three leaves, one stem - as is water - two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen forming one entity which can be a liquid, a solid and a gas.

My favourite image, though, is not of the form of the Trinity but of its dynamism and dynamic. That image is of a dance as the Greek word for the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - perichoresis - means ‘to dance around one another in relationship’ ('peri meaning around, and choreio to dance' - Touching the Sacred, Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever, Canterbury Press). As those who have danced with others regularly or those who have watched Strictly will know, dance partners interact “within a rhythm which remains the same but in a continuous variety of movements.” At its best, you have people totally in tune with one another for the period of that dance.

This is what the united relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is thought to be in the Christian faith and it means that at the very heart of God is a dynamic relationship in which a constant exchange of love is underway. That exchange has been called it the dance of love.

At several points in John’s Gospel, we hear Jesus speaking about his relationship with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit. When he speaks in this way it is as though Jesus is pulling back the veil which prevents us from seeing God and giving us, thereby, a glimpse of God as Trinity. He says in John 16: 5-15 that God the Spirit takes what belongs to God the Son and declares it to us. All that belongs to God the Son, he says, also belongs to God the Father. So, all that Jesus has belongs equally to the Spirit and the Father. Therefore, we have a picture of God the Father giving to God the Son who gives to God the Holy Spirit who gives to us. What is being pictured is an exchange of love.

Stephen Verney explored this idea in several of his books (e.g. The Dance of Love, Stephen Verney, Fount): “The Son can do nothing of himself”, he wrote, “but only what he sees the Father doing” (5. 19). That is one side of the equation (of this so-called equality) – the emptiness of the Son. He looks, and what he sees his Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears his Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing” (5. 20), and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries, “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

This is the relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead where love is constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is out of this relationship of love that Jesus comes into our world to open up a way for us to participate in the relationship of love that is constantly being shared between Father, Son and Spirit.

That is the incredible truth that Jesus’ words reveal to us. The Spirit takes what belongs to Father, Son and Spirit and gives it to us. We are invited in to the relationship of love which exists in the Godhead. Verney says that the eternal dance of the Trinity in heaven is reflected in the creation and we are invited to join in. Our relationship with God means that we are always being invited to be drawn further into this constant, eternal exchange or dance of love. Jesus describes this when he says that he is in the Father and the Father in him. He then extends that same relationship to others too - I am in you and you are in me. To really know love, Christianity suggests, we must be drawn into the dance of love which Father, Son and Holy Spirit share and which is at the very heart of God.

We are familiar with the idea that God’s love for us is shown in Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us by becoming human and then dying for us on the cross. We are less familiar with the idea that we can be part of the constant exchange of love in God of which we have been speaking and which Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice enables us to experience. If we live in God, we live in love and love lives in us. We become included in the constant exchange of love which exists in the Godhead and are, therefore, constantly loved no matter what else is going on in our lives. The dance of love is the glory in God’s heart, the pattern by which we are loved and the pattern by which we are called to live.

God intends to embrace all creation within the fellowship of the Three. God’s mission is to form communities that reflect and embody the life of the Trinity by living in love and having love live in us.

“What the world needs more than anything else is communities of trust and support and love that show what kind of life is possible when we believe that God is sovereign, when we place our trust and security there. We need people and communities that believe in the power of God, that believe in the role of the church, and that are content to live through no other power than the means of grace God has given us.” (Sam Wells)

So, within the Holy Trinity, we strive, as David Runcorn has described, to be a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing ourselves; emptying, pouring ourselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped; living and knowing each other in the simple ecstasy of giving, which is the unity and community of the Triune God (D. Runcorn, Choice, Desire and the Will of God, SPCK).

Let us pray: Triune God, in the dance of your love we see your nature as utter relationship. Your three persons gaze in mutual attention, relish each other in deep delight and work together in true partnership. Make your church a community across time and space that enjoys the gift of your life and imitates the wonder of your glory, until we all come into your presence and gaze upon your glory, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Amen.

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Maddy Prior - Lord Of The Dance.

Resource Church: Licensing of Catherine Duce

Revd Catherine Duce was licensed on Wednesday as Assistant Vicar for Partnership Development at St Martin-in-the-Fields by The Rt Revd Ric Thorpe, Bishop of Islington. Catherine’s role is to further develop HeartEdge in London, while also leading on Nazareth Community partnerships more generally and supporting other key initiatives at St Martin’s. Her appointment has been made possible because St Martin’s has been designated as a resource church by the Diocese of London.

The role that Catherine is now taking on is one which is part of the Resource Church initiative that Bishop Ric has pioneered in the Diocese of London and more widely. Resource churches are essentially those that are able to share with and support other churches in their mission and ministry. Many Resource churches in London will use the model of church planting but, here at St Martin's, the resource that we are sharing is HeartEdge, the ecumenical movement for renewal that we initiated in February 2017.

HeartEdge is a growing network of churches and other organisations in which ideas for and approaches to mission are shared and where the challenges faced by churches today are honestly explored. We have a programme of introductory events, mission model workshops and consultancy days which provide opportunities for mutual learning and support the revitalization of churches and, with Catherine’s help, will plan more London-focused events. Catherine's role is to grow HeartEdge in London, supporting existing member churches and encouraging more churches to join this movement for renewal.

Please do pray that God will take all that Catherine brings to this role from her previous experience and use it powerfully in the development of mutual support between churches, the revitalization of congregations and the growth through those congregations of new worshipping communities.

Catherine can be contacted on 020 7766 1127 or catherine.duce@smitf.org and would love to hear from you. She will be seeking to visit all HeartEdge members in London, so expect to hear from her before too long. We would also love to draw more churches into the movement for renewal that is HeartEdge, so do suggest other churches with which Catherine could share information.

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Take O Take Me As I Am.

The Dance of Love: Living the prayer of Jesus

Here is the sermon that I preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields today:

If you knew you had roughly eighteen hours to live and could use that time to talk and pray with your nearest and dearest, I wonder what you would say and do? It is likely that whatever you did and said in that time it would all be to do with what was of central importance to your life and thought.

That was the situation in which Jesus found himself in the hours before his crucifixion and we know that he used that time to share acted parables and key messages with his disciples, as well as to pray. His prayer at that time, a part of which forms today’s Gospel reading (John 17. 20 - 26), was for the unity of his current and future disciples – that they might be one. So, why was unity of such central importance to Jesus’ thinking and praying at that most significant moment in his life - the time of his death? If we can answer that question, we can reach into the very heart of Jesus’ being and thinking.

When Jesus prayed that his followers might all be one, he prayed this on the basis that his followers might be in God as he is in the Father and the Father is in him. He was praying that we, who follow in his footsteps, would experience the same oneness with God and each other that he enjoys with God, his Father. In essence, his prayer is that we will experience unity, because unity is what is at the very heart of God.

The Greek Fathers called the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit perichoresis, which “means ‘to dance around one another in relationship’, … peri meaning around, and choreio to dance” (Touching the Sacred, Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever, Canterbury Press). Stephen Verney, a former Bishop of Repton, explored this idea in several of his books (e.g. The Dance of Love, Fount) writing about “the dance of love of the Trinity in which they give place to each other.” “This is the glory revealed in Jesus, as the Father and the Son give authority to each other in mutual interdependence, and as the creator and the creation interpenetrate each other.” Similarly, David Runcorn has described “the Holy Trinity as a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing themselves; emptying, pouring themselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped. They live and know each other in the simple ecstasy of giving” (Choice, Desire and the Will of God, SPCK). At the heart of the Godhead is a relationship of love where love is constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and this exchange or dance of love holds them together in unity.

Verney goes on to say that the eternal dance of the Trinity in heaven is reflected in creation and we are invited to join in because it was out of that relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead that Jesus came into our world to open up a way for us to participate in the eternal dance of love constantly shared between Father, Son and Spirit. We are familiar with the idea that God’s love for us is shown in Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us by becoming human and then dying for us on the cross. We are, perhaps, less familiar with the idea that we can be part of the constant exchange of love in God of which we have been speaking and which Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice of himself enables us to experience. If we live in God, we live in love and love lives in us. We become included in the constant exchange of love which exists in the Godhead and are, therefore, constantly loved no matter what else is going on in our lives.

In the words of Paul Simon, we could respond to this by saying ‘So beautiful or so what’. It’s all very well picturing a beautiful dance at the heart of the Trinity but what difference does that make to us or anyone else?

Firstly, it says to us that we are 100% loved by God, surrounded by and filled by love, and that the more we experience of God, the more we can come to know love for ourselves. I wonder, do we allow the reality that we are accepted and loved by God to seep into the depths of our being where it can and will address our insecurities and anxieties? Do we know this for ourselves? Do we accept it for ourselves? Because ultimately our deepest need is to know with absolute confidence that we are loved and that is what is assured for us through the sacrifice of Jesus and the dance of love which is the Trinity.

Second, we see that love involves the continual giving and receiving of affirmation and authority. The dance of love is not a solo with the spotlight firmly fixed on an individual who garners all the glory for his or herself. It’s not even a picture of the kind of intuitive interaction which we see in ballroom dancing and which has been popularised on TV by ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. We are talking here of reciprocal love or giving which cannot be manipulated by ego, because the gift always moves beyond the reach of the one who first gives it. That is one of the reasons why it is so important that God is Trinity, three persons who are also one.

Lewis Hyde notes in his book called ‘The Gift’ that when giving is reciprocal: "The gift moves in a circle, and two people do not make much of a circle. Two points establish a line, but a circle lies in a plane and needs at least three points.” It is only “When the gift moves in a circle [that] its motion is beyond the control of the personal ego, and so each bearer must be a part of the group and each donation is an act of social faith.” That is what we see in the Trinity and what we are called to replicate in our own relationships. “The Dance of Love,” Verney writes, “is the glory in God’s heart, but it is also the pattern which is reflected in everything he has created.” The more we live according to God’s pattern for life, the more we know in our lives the love and unity of the Trinity itself.

In his prayer Jesus makes a contrast between giving which can be controlled by personal ego or one pair of gift partners and giving which is genuinely reciprocal. He states that the world does not know his Righteous Father and, earlier in the prayer, that the world hates his disciples because they do not belong to the world, just as he does not belong to the world.

When Jesus uses this language of separation in John’s Gospel between his disciples and the world, Verney suggests that he is speaking about two different levels or orders to reality. What he means by this are different patterns of society, each with a different centre or ruling power. In the first, “the ruling principle is the dictator ME, my ego-centric ego, and the pattern of society is people competing with, manipulating and trying to control each other.” In the second, “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.” Runcorn puts it like this, “the life of God is non-possessive, non-competitive, humbly attentive to the interests of the other, united in love and vision.” To be God-like, “is not to be grasping” and so “Jesus pours himself out ‘precisely because’ he is God from God.”

These two orders or patterns for society are at war with each other and we are caught up in the struggle that results. Choosing our side in this struggle is a key question for us as human beings, the question being “so urgent that our survival depends on finding the answer.” Verney writes that: “we can see in our world order the terrible consequences of our ego-centricity. We have projected it into our institutions, where it has swollen up into a positive force of evil. Human beings have set up prison camps where they torture each other for pleasure. We are all imprisoned together, in a system of competing nation states, on the edge of a catastrophe which could destroy all life on our planet.”

I was reminded of these words when reading a recent interview that Neil McGregor gave to The Observer. In this interview he made some typically insightful contributions to the current debate about the EU referendum based on research for his book ‘Germany: Memories of a Nation’. He said, for example, that: “German people see the whole purpose of a political leader is to make successful alliances. The proper use of sovereignty is all about pooling it to achieve your aims. The British idea that you should entirely do these things on your own and try to assume total control over your environment is unthinkable.”

Similarly, President Obama suggested, during his recent visit to Europe, that “the people of Europe … are more secure and more prosperous because we stood together for the ideals we share.” As a Guardian article commenting on this speech noted this message runs counter to Europe’s growing populism; “the self-glorification of national egos, the distrust towards outsiders, and the reflex of putting up walls or closing down borders.”

In the UK we are at the very heart of this discussion as the last few years have seen us engaging in considerable political debate about the benefits of collaboration versus independence. From 2010 – 2015 we had our most recent experience of coalition government and, for all the complications inherent in coalitions, many would see that period as preferable to the licence that a majority Conservative Government has had to pursue austerity cuts on those with the least influence and political power in our society. In 2014 Scots voted narrowly to remain part of the United Kingdom rather than choosing independence and this year we are asked vote on essentially the same issue but in relation to the European Union.

Jesus’ focus on unity at the time of his death and the dance of love within the Trinity which is the basis for that focus, would suggest that, as his followers, we should favour collaboration, coalition, alliances and unions over independence, in the way that Neil suggests the German people have come to do. Yet we know, too, that a focus on unity at all costs also can silence voices of dissent and conscience and that power can accrue in unhelpful or unaccountable ways the larger or all-embracing an organisation or union may be.

Here at St Martin’s we know how difficult and complex it can be to create and sustain a community that is both unified and inclusive. We also know how valuable it is to make the attempt and to grapple with the complexities. I know that I have been both impressed and impacted by the way in which St Martin’s grapples with these issues and realise that I need to make changes in my thinking and practice as a result. These issues and complexities are, of course, magnified when it comes to working them through in the context of a union of nations, as we can by being part of the EU.

Nevertheless, the dance of love at the heart of the Trinity and our participation in that dance, as God’s children, compels us, I think, to make that attempt within the communities, organisations and networks of which we are part; whether that is family, church, local community, nation or union of nations. In doing so, we come to know ourselves firstly as surrounded by and filled by the love which overflows from the Trinity, then understand that such love involves the continual giving and receiving of affirmation and authority as we seek to live in and through the dance of love in the complexities of human relationships, alliances, coalitions, collaborations and unions. Like the Holy Trinity, we strive to be a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing themselves; emptying, pouring themselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped; living and knowing each other in the simple ecstasy of giving, which is the unity for which Jesus prayed.

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K.D. Lang - Jericho.

The Dance of Love

Here is my sermon from St Stephen Walbrook today:

Explaining the idea of the Trinity - three persons, one God - has always been a challenge to priests and preachers. The shamrock is one favourite illustration - three leaves, one stem - as is water - two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen forming one entity which can be a liquid, a solid and a gas.

My favourite image, though, is not of the form of the Trinity but of its dynamism and dynamic. That image is of a dance as the Greek word for the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - perichoresis - means ‘to dance around one another in relationship’ ('peri meaning around, and choreio to dance' - Touching the Sacred, Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever, Canterbury Press). As those who have danced with others regularly will know, dance partners interact “within a rhythm which remains the same but in a continuous variety of movements.” At its best, you have people totally in tune with one another for the period of that dance.

This is what the united relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is thought to be in the Christian faith and it means that at the very heart of God is a dynamic relationship in which a constant exchange of love is underway. It has been called it the dance of love.

At several points in John’s Gospel we hear Jesus speaking about his relationship with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit. When he speaks in this way it is as though Jesus is pulling back the veil which prevents us from seeing God and giving us, thereby, a glimpse of God as Trinity. He says in John 16: 5-15 that God the Spirit takes what belongs to God the Son and declares it to us. All that belongs to God the Son, he says, also belongs to God the Father. So, all that Jesus has belongs equally to the Spirit and the Father. Therefore, we have a picture of God the Father giving to God the Son who gives to God the Holy Spirit who gives to us. What is being pictured is an exchange of love.

Stephen Verney, a former Bishop of Repton, has explored this idea in several of his books (The Dance of Love, Stephen Verney, Fount): “The Son can do nothing of himself”, he says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” (5. 19). That is one side of the equation (of this so-called equality) – the emptiness of the Son. He looks, and what he sees his Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears his Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing” (5. 20), and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries, “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

This is a relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead where love is constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is out of this relationship of love that Jesus comes into our world to open up a way for us to participate in the relationship of love that is constantly being shared between Father, Son and Spirit.

That is the incredible truth that Jesus’ words reveal to us. The Spirit takes what belongs to Father, Son and Spirit and gives it to us. We are invited in to the relationship of love which exists in the Godhead. Verney says that the eternal dance of the Trinity in heaven is reflected in the creation and we are invited to join in. Our relationship with God means that we are always being invited to be drawn further into this constant, eternal exchange or dance of love. Jesus describes this when he says that he is in the Father and the Father in him. He then extends that same relationship to others too - I am in you and you are in me. To really know love, Christianity suggests, we must be drawn into the dance of love which Father, Son and Holy Spirit share and which is at the very heart of God.

We are familiar with the idea that God’s love for us is shown in Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us by becoming human and then dying for us on the cross. We are less familiar with the idea that we can be part of the constant exchange of love in God of which we have been speaking and which Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice enables us to experience. If we live in God, we live in love and love lives in us. We become included in the constant exchange of love which exists in the Godhead and are, therefore, constantly loved no matter what else is going on in our lives. The dance of love is the glory in God’s heart, the pattern by which we are loved and the pattern by which we are called to live.

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Madeleine Peyroux - Dance Me To The End Of Love.

The Dance of Love (2)

The partners in a ballroom dance, it seems to me, need to learn to think and move as one. At times, they will dance the same synchronised steps, perhaps as a mirror image of the other. At other points in the dance they will have different steps to dance, perhaps as one spins away from the other or is lifted from the dance floor by their partner. But at all times they must know where their partner is, where they are in relation to their partner, what their partner will do next, and for both to be in time with the music.

In ballroom dancing, the male and female partners interact “within a rhythm which remains the same but in a continuous variety of movements.” At its best, you have two people totally in tune with one another for the period of that dance.

What has this to do with Trinity Sunday? Well, the answer is found in “the Greek word for the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit [which] means ‘to dance around one another in relationship’, perichoresis – peri meaning around, and choreio to dance.” (Touching the Sacred, Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever, Canterbury Press)

Stephen Verney, a former Bishop of Repton, who explored this idea in several of his books, identified chapter 5 of John’s Gospel as being “the most accurate and penetrating description of that dance” (The Dance of Love, Stephen Verney, Fount):

“The religious authorities have accused Jesus of making himself equal to God, and he replies in words which move beyond the category of equality, and into the language of love. “The Son can do nothing of himself”, he says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” (v.19). That is one side of the equation (of this so-called equality) – the emptiness of the Son. He looks, and what he sees his Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears his Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing” (v.20), and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries, “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

So, the kind of at-oneness that we see in great ballroom dancers gives us a picture of the kind of togetherness and understanding that is found in the Godhead and constantly shared between Father, Son and Spirit, as each is found in the other. Stephen Verney writes that “The Greek Fathers called the perichoresis (peri: around, chora: place), the dance of love of the Trinity in which they give place to each other. This is the glory revealed in Jesus, as the Father and the Son give authority to each other in mutual interdependence, and as the creator and the creation interpenetrate each other.”

Now, in the words of Paul Simon’s new album, we could say ‘So beautiful or so what’ to these ideas. It’s all very well picturing a beautiful dance at the heart of the Trinity but what difference does that make to us?

In answer to that question, Verney says that the eternal dance of the Trinity in heaven is reflected in the creation and we are invited to join in. At the heart of the Godhead is a relationship of love where love is constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is out of the relationship of love that Jesus comes into our world to open up a way for us to participate in the relationship of love that is constantly being shared between Father, Son and Spirit.

We are familiar with the idea that God’s love for us is shown in Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us by becoming human and then dying for us on the cross. We are less familiar with the idea that we can be part of the constant exchange of love in God of which we have been speaking and which Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice of himself enables us to experience. If we live in God, we live in love and love lives in us. We become included in the constant exchange of love which exists in the Godhead and are, therefore, constantly loved no matter what else is going on in our lives.

The more we experience of God, the more we come to know that we are 100% loved by Him, surrounded by and filled by His love. This is the experience of the Psalmist in Psalm 139:

“Where could I go to escape from you?
Where could I get away from your presence?
If I went up to heaven, you would be there;
if I lay down in the world of the dead, you would be there.
If I flew away beyond the east or lived in the farthest place in the west,
You would be there to lead me, you would be there to help me.”

Do we know this for ourselves? Do we accept it for ourselves? Do we allow the reality that we are accepted and loved by God to seep into the depths of our being where it can and will resolve all of our insecurities and anxieties? Because our deepest need is to know with absolute confidence that we are loved and this is what is assured for us through the sacrifice of Jesus and the dance of love which is the Trinity.

Second, we see that love involves the continual giving and receiving of affirmation and authority. The dance of love is not a solo with the spotlight firmly fixed on an individual who garners all the glory for his or herself. The picture we have been exploring has been of the at-oneness of the male and female ballroom dancers which has then taken us into the mutual exchange of love between the Father, Son and Spirit.

What we see then is the importance for us of constantly seeking to share love with others. Jesus’ teaching is continually phrased in terms of giving and receiving: ‘I in you and you in me’; ‘give and it shall be given to you’; ‘love your neighbour as you love yourself’; ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’. If we don’t give love away to others then we become a blockage in the constant exchange of love of which we are a part and this prevents us from receiving love at the same time that love ceases to be shared with others through us.

Is that our experience? Are there grudges or grievances that we hold against others? People or situations where we have not been willing to forgive? Over time such things build up to become major factors in our lives, our relationships and our emotions. Over time, they obscure our awareness of God’s constantly flowing love towards us. Confession is the medium through which such blockages are removed – again, as has been mentioned, ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’.

These are just two of the practical outcomes for us of reflecting on the Dance of Love which is the Trinity. “The Dance of Love,” Stephen Verney writes, “is the glory in God’s heart, but it is also the pattern which is reflected in everything he has created.” The more we live according to his pattern for life, the more we will know in our lives the love and unity of both the ballroom partners and the Trinity itself.

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Paul Simon - So Beautiful Or So What.