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the Father and the Son within the Godhead, unity and friendship take us to the
heart of who God is and why God is God and also why, as human beings, our
life is a relationship with God. And it is rooted in our patterning of the person
of the Incarnate Christ.

The third reason for my use of the term provisional derives from the
word: towards in the title. Any of us involved in the relational aspects of church
life could hardly have a deep enough reservoir of patience! Words like: towards
give voice to such patience. Whether it be an Agreement or a Covenant or a
Communion or any other permutation on coming and being together, a word
such as towards gives cover for what is incomplete in its expression, yet hon-
ourable in its aspiration. Finally, words like closer and greater are both progres-
sive and ingressive. The further we go, the deeper we go. This is what convinces
me more and more of the theological, even more than the operational, aspects
of communion. Communion is a spirituality that ask of us: Who do we want to
be and to become together even more than it asks of us: What do we want to do
together? (1 John 3.2)

The Trinity as a paradigm of unity and friendship

There are many ways of understanding the Trinity but I should like us, in the
context of The Porvoo Common Statement and as The Porvoo Churches, to
look at a particular word as a way of understanding the Trinity and it is: rapport.
And so, I introduce the term: elasticity as well as provisionality into our current
discussion of Porvoo into the future in order to grasp something of this word:
rapport as we ourselves seek to live an earthly life of Trinitarian proportions.
Unity and friendship in the Christian religion are modelled in a comprehensive
Trinitarianism which shares with the earthly creation the best of Godly life.
There is a rapport across members of the divine Trinity and there is also a rap-
port between individual members of the Trinity and human beings, built on
their divine attributes. Using the inherited names of Father, Son and Holy
Spirit for the Three Persons of the Trinity, I o?er three expressions of each
Person consonant with the incarnational impact of the God who came to live
an earthly life in Jesus Christ and who continues to exercise a providential care
and oversight of the world in the Holy Spirit. Were time to permit, I could of-
fer a more structured explanation of why I suggest each set of three descrip-
tions around each Person. However, I imagine that it will quickly be clear why
I am o?ering the three trinities that I am o?ering. I suggest that the Father is
expressed in creation, recreation and redemption; that the Son is expressed in
incarnation, teaching and mission; that the Holy Spirit is expressed in love,

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