This person said to me, "Bishop, I mean no disrespect, but I don't know if I am really a Christian". I invited further reflection, and this comment soon followed:

"I believe in God. With all my heart. I believe in Jesus. I believe in the Holy Spirit. But I can't figure out how they all go together in the Trinity! It makes no sense to me".

This is the kind of comment I welcome! The kind of comment we all MUST welcome. It is in the community of faith that we are safe and supported, loved and accepted, as we seek to understand -- to bring together the head and the heart aspects of faith. One of our vocations as Episcopalians is to invite questions, to welcome seekers, to share in respectful conversation with people who yearn to live a holy life (note that the word "holy" comes from the same root as the word "whole" or "entire"). To love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength is holy faith, faith that is rooted in our whole being.

It is in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, that we see and know a truly holy life, a life lived so utterly at-one with God. To say that Jesus is Lord is to speak limitless truth...that only in Jesus Christ do we have hope of this  holiness/wholeness which we long for in ourselves, in our companions, in our congregations and in our world. Yes, I do believe that we long for this holiness, 'way down deep in our beings. A dear friend of mine once said: "Under every cranky and selfish person is a Mother Theresa, struggling to get out".

To seek holiness: There is no life project of greater priority than this. There is no goal more urgent than this. In an increasingly selfish and self-gratifying world, whose deep and genuine hunger for holiness is camouflaged in so many guises, HERE is the only path worth taking! The path of Christ, the self-giving One, who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 14:6) .

And so, back we come to the question of the Trinity. We have some help here from a wise and passionate seeker of the last century: "In God there can be no selfishness, because the three selves of God arethree subsistent relations of selflessness, overflowing and superabounding in joy in the perfection of their gift of their one life fully to one another."
- Thomas Merton, OCSO

The Trinity is about self-giving which knows no end. The Trinity is the very life of God who is Love. Our life with and in God, as we grow in holiness by God's grace, is a life of self-giving. And here your Chief Shepherd (which is one of the things a Bishop is called to be) rejoices to observe: We are growing in holiness, by God's mercy, in our life with our Lord in the Diocese of Maine.

What leads me to make this bold statement? Just a few snapshots:

1. Because Christ calls us to nothing less than self-giving, we build a ministry to the aching world which is the Bayside region of Portland. Elsewhere in this issue, you will see more information about St. Elizabeth's mission.

2. Several recent diocesan gatherings have all yielded the same conclusions: we want to understand one another better; from York to Limestone and from Rangeley to Eastport, we want to live in deeper communion with one another, bearing one another's burdens and sharing one another's joys.

3. We are asking better questions, holier questions, of one another. I hear far less of "What's in this for me?" and more of "How can we support one another materially and spiritually in a spirit of unity?".We are asking more about "How can we reach out to the community around us? To the unchurched? To young people?" and less about "How can we get more people to pay the bills and do the work?"

4. More and more congregations, in a wealth of different ways, are asking, "What is God calling us to be and to do?".

5. People are clamoring for more avenues of spiritual growth: Let us have moreworkshops on Taize prayer and spirituality! Let us find new ways to pray and to worship! Let us have more resources on discerning our own ministries!  Help find and lift up Christ in the despair of our shrinking, impoverished rural communities!

6. Each summer, we stretch out the arms of our love to those who "tarry awhile" in Maine, especially in our summer chapels. People are planning more shared services, more joint Bible studies, and more ways to know one another better. And, as we open our hearts to our summer visitors, more of them are asking me, "Bishop, how can we be part of the mission of the Diocese?"

7. Recently, I wrote to about 25 people in the diocesan community, asking if they would join me in preliminary exploration and discernment about a Capital Campaign for our diocese. I believe that the Spirit is stirring us to strengthen our resources so that we may build a strong program of campus ministry, support the planting of new congregations, increase the resources we have to bring our promising seminary graduates back to Maine as clergy interns, assist congregations more generously in their local outreach, and respectfully care for the bricks and mortar which shelter our people in worship, ministry and mission. I have never had such an overwhelmingly positive response to an appeal for help. You will be hearing more about this as explorations continue.

At the end of the Gospel of John, the writer observes how much more there is to say about the wondrous self-giving of Christ: "I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written". That's how it is for me too, as I write to you of the powerful movement of Christ's Spirit in our midst. If I had this entire issue of the NORTHEAST -- or every page of every issue -- it would still not be enough space to tell of all the ways in which we are being drawn into holiness.

Of course, we always dig in our heels a bit when God gets hold of us. The path has bumps, and old ways die hard. But the movement is clear. God will settle for nothing less than our growth as a holy people. And God is in charge of you, of me, of this diocese.

At the end of each of the Daily Offices (Morning and Evening Prayer), we are given this word of praise, which brings tears of joy for me each time I pray it:

Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen

.With my love in the most Holy Trinity,