Scottish Life and the Trinity

Today my friend Allison was the 'preacher.' I met up with her today down by the pier and she was reflecting on the Scottish way of life and how people in our little town spend all day on Saturdays with their families on the East Sands, many of them with thier dogs playing fetch. The pace of life in St. Andrews is a lot slower than what many of us are used to and Allison seemed to be particularly conscious of the pace today. One comment that she made was that she seemed to think that relationships are a lot more important here than back home in the U.S. We both wondered how we could retain the way of life here once we move back to the States. She thought she'd try to live near a park. I had no answer.

I started to think more about why it is that relationships seem to be so important to humanity. It seems to me that Christianity has a particular answer to this question. The answer seems to be that we as human beings somehow reflect the triune nature of God. The technical phrase for this is that we are created in the imago dei, the image of God. One reason that relationships seem to be so vital to who we are as people is because God's very nature is relational. God is being-in-relation. By being made in God's image we are relational beings, hence the importance of our relationships. The way of life in St. Andrews makes it a lot easier to reflect this image.