In a guidebook to Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, England, under an illustration of the monk's chapel reads the following description: "Here the monks gathered every Sunday to hear a sermon from the Abbot, except on Trinity Sunday, owing to the difficulty of the subject."

How does one describe the indescribable? Or express the inexpressible?

After all, in portraying the Trinity you and I are painting a vast rainbow with only charcoal pencils. As Archbishop Rowan Williams puts it, "even in banal contexts we are aware of the fact that our pigeonholes for things, people, emotions and perceptions, are often lagging well behind the fluidity of the real world... and whether it is in theoretical physics or in poetry, we need to express some sense of this strange fact that our language doesn't 'keep up' with the multiplicity and interrelatedness and elusiveness of truth."

And of all the elusive truths you and I can talk about, God pretty much tops the list.

Since the beginning of time humans, most of whom seem to have a natural and innate suspicion of 'God,' have struggled to figure out if there, indeed, is one. The illustration above is that of a Roman altar dedicated 'to the unknown God,' which, if taken quite literally, encompasses just about everyone's idea of God, Christianity's included.

Trinity Sunday poses several questions. Can we ever really 'know' God? Can we come to a convincing certainty, like that of the keyboard underneath my fingers or the car parked in my garage - can I know God with the same confidence? If we say 'no' does that mean there is no God? If we say 'yes' then does that mean we have finally ascended to the pinnacle of religious faith?

For Trinity Sunday asks you and me to come to grips with the fact that we will not, cannot and will never know everything - actually, much of anything - about the universe in which we live and about the God whom we worship.

However, as Christians, we do believe we have enough to go on to get us this far. After all, I know very little about what takes place underneath the hood of my car, but I trust it with my life every time I drive to work. We know that the life and ministry of Jesus has touched us and changed our lives. It has introduced us to the deepest love human life has to offer.

So Trinity Sunday, if nothing else, helps you and me make peace with the great unknown, for we trust it to God's omniscient power. Which means the exercise in faith you and I participate in on this day is one in which we assure ourselves of the basic truths of our faith: God takes care of the birds, God waters the flowers, how much more will God take care of you and me? Trinity Sunday asks us to be content amidst the unknowableness of God, let God be God, and let us be who we are; fully able to embrace love, which is God.

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