A honey suckle vine extends herself into space in a graceful flourish. Reaching into nothingness, she dangles from hope and her own inner nature for making a connection to something beyond herself.
I have been reaching out into cyber space with The Praying Life blog for over a year now of weekly posts. Time for a bit of review and evaluation.
This time of year many churches celebrate the Trinity, a notion that makes a lot of people scratch their heads and squint. English historian Edward Gibbon, famously called the Trinity, “perhaps the deepest and darkest corner of the whole theological abyss.”
Undaunted, some pastors will boldly attempt to explain how a God can be one, and three. The scholarly ones will use the ancient words of the church to describe the Trinitarian nature of God: circumincessio, Latin for sits in a circle, and (my favorite) perichoresis, Greek for dances in a circle. Both words refer to the relationship of the inner parts of God, a relationship of intimacy, reciprocity, and circularity.
If I were preaching about the Trinity, I would pass on what Meister Eckhart says. “Do you want to know what goes on in the core of Trinity? I will tell you. The Father laughs and gives birth to the Son. The Son laughs back at the Father and the gives birth to the Spirit. The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us.”
The Trinity speaks of a dynamic hilarity and self giving in the heart of God’s nature.
God is a community, an interactive exchange of love. As creatures made in God’s image, we also are profoundly connected and communal. I just wish we could laugh more about it.
Blogging has heightened and deepened my awareness of the bounty of community in the shared experience of our life in God together. The opportunity for exchange and conversation has shaped, formed, and reformed me.
For me personally, the past year of the praying life has been the slow and only work of conversion, of turning and re-turning my heart to the One who summons beauty, justice, and truth from our souls, bids us to love, and marries us to Mercy. A life focused in prayer keeps revealing those things in me which struggle against God’s Spirit. You know – the pride, selfishness, envy, fear, doubt, ambition.
Internet ministry is ripe for all these sins to distract and flourish. Who commented on what? How many viewers did I get? Does my blog have “authority”? Oh look at how good his blog is…. I wish I could write like her. Blah, blah, blah. God, set me free of me!
Blogging has invited me to loosen up, to be more present – in this world of fleeting impressions, and swiftly passing fancies. Instead of trying to grasp, preserve, and set in stone, as print media encourages, I have been invited to tune into the streaming presence of God and to become more streaming myself, more open and influenced and shaped by this dance. 
Twelve months out, reaching for a handhold, streaming a life in God, I hope you are stretching into the unknown. I hope you are laughing and giving birth to joy from your branch on the vine.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reaching out, reading and commenting, for sharing the blog with others, for praying and sharing your own praying life.
For such delight we have been created.
Shall we dance?
The Praying Life 
keep the blogs coming. the world needs more glorious music to dance to. i look forward to reading your words each week. i got the giggles this week like i haven’t in years. belly laugh that went down to my toes. the thought of heaven joining a laughing community is sheet joy. why do i take myself so seriously? is my question right now.
i reread my response and noticed i put sheet rather than sheer. something for me to smile about. proof reading is good, this side of heaven
When talking of laughing and being joyful….it is so important to God that We are joyful.
It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. (Gal. 5:22)
But may all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You. (Psalm 40:16)
Rejoice Always. Again I say rejoice! (Phil. 3:5)
Isaiah 12:3 says, “With Joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation!”
If you are spiritually dry, you need water right? You need the Love of God to fill you up to overflowing! You need to draw water from the Well of Salvation which is In Christ Jesus our Lord!
How do you draw water! Isaiah says WITH JOY!!!
How does one get joy? Through thinking on the name of Jesus. Through Loving Jesus. Through Loving Others. Through forgetting about oneself. Through Prayer and Worship! Through confessing and repenting of all sin! All day long think upon and cling to the Name of Jesus and you will see JOY growing!
Thanks, Robyn, those texts you share crackle and snap with the joy Christ Jesus gives.
Your quote about the laughing Trinity is the conveyance of emotion I have been searching for. My previous attempts at identifying my personal conceptual experience with the Trinity have always been just short of what I wanted to express. Joy, laughter, belonging, community and even more . . .
I think I will be stopping by again!
Thanks, Jan. I think laughter is very close to the heart of God. Once when I asked my daughter what she thought haqqodesh (Hebrew for the holy ground) meant, she thought for a moment and said, “Well, mom, I think that is where there is a whole lot of laughing.”
I’ll dance with you any day, Loretta. My congregation understands my love of the dance – my love of worship – the way I celebrate God as our trinitarian God – and some even dance along with me.