The Third Peacock by Robert Farrar Capon in one of my all
time favorite books. It begins with this whimsical version of creation:
Let
me tell you why God made the world. One afternoon, before anything was made,
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit sat around in the unity of
their godhead discussing one of the Father’s fixations. From all eternity, it
seems, he had had this thing about being. He would keep thinking up all kinds
of unnecessary things, new ways of being and new kinds of being to be. And as
they talked, God the Son suddenly said, “Really, this is absolutely great
stuff. Why don’t I go out and mix us up a batch.” And God the Holy Spirit said,
“Terrific, I’ll help you.” So they all pitched in. And after supper that night
the Son and the Holy Spirit put on this tremendous show of being for the
Father. It was full of water and light and frogs. Pinecones kept dropping all
over the place and crazy fish swam in the wine glasses. There were mushrooms
and grapes, horseradishes and tigers, and men and women everywhere to taste
them, to juggle them, to join them and to love them. And God the Father looked
at the whole wild party and said, “Wonderful! Just what I had in mind. Tove,
tove, tove.” And all God the Son and God the Holy Spirit could think of to say
was the same thing, “Tove, tove, tove.” So they shouted together, “Tove me’od –
very good.” And they laughed for ages and ages saying things like how great it
was for beings to be, and how clever of the Father to think of the idea, and
how kind of the Son to go to all that trouble putting it together, and how
considerate of the Spirit to spend so much time directing and choreographing.
And forever and ever they told old jokes, and the Father and the Son drank
their wine, inu ta te Spiritus Sancte,
and they all threw ripe olives and pickled mushrooms at each other per omnia secula, seculorum. Amen.”
As, I said, it is
a whimsical take on creation. Capon recognized that. But, it does remind us
that the Christian vision of the world begins and ends in celebration. And that
in, with, and under all that is – at the heart of everything – is the celebration that is the Holy Trinity.
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