A mother took her 8 year old daughter camping one night.

Awakened by a bad dream, the disoriented little girl pointed to her foot, which was under the covers and said, "Look mom, there's a squirrel in my sleeping bag, get a baseball bat!"

The mother tried to calm her daughter and explained that there was nothing to be scared of, it was just her foot, and certainly she would not want to hurt herself, which, thankfully the little girl realized before something painful happened.

It was physicist Werner Heisenberg who is credited with the scientific suggestion the our world is an interconnected web of relationships, that practically speaking, we are all a part of a oneness, a belonging, an interrelatedness - and that when we whack anybody's foot, we may as well be whacking our own.

This Sunday, Trinity Sunday, gives us a strong message on interconnectedness. It's when the church recognizes the unity of God amidst the diversity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It is a unity, not a uniformity, that we do well to take not just into our understanding of religion, but our interpersonal, and even national lives.

This week the January 6 Capital Attack hearings will be televised, drawing partisan rancor and exposing yet another rift in the harmony of our nation.

What would this conversation look like if we understood that when we beat up our opponents, we harm ourselves; that in crippling those who oppose us, we are never left unharmed?

In other words, like the very essence of God, we have been created with intentional distinction, meant not to cause splinter and fray, but so we might form a stronger and more perfect union. We do this with mutual respect and by minding the Golden Rule.

Every day you and I have opportunities to handle difference and division, let us model the very nature and witness of God, and choose not to whack ourselves in the foot.