So two Mormons walk up to me today as I'm outside building a rock wall in our yard. No, this isn't the beginning of a joke;
I was close to finishing off a small section of rock wall I decided to build as a buffer/boundary marker between our neighbor
and I when I spotted these two guys near the corner of the block. Identifying them right away by their white dress shirts and
use of the buddy system, I wondered if they'd turn turn the corner and come my way. Sure 'nuff, they did, and I whispered a
quick prayer to the one true Lord, asking for His help.

Standing next to my driveway, I made eye contact with the alpha male; he waved, I waved back and greeted him. What transpired
over the next half hour or so was my best attempt to tell them the Truth, the most thought-provoking part for me being our
discussion of the Trinity. Mormons believe that God the Father and God the Son are separate, distinct beings, sorta like you
and I (except they're just a tad more connected), whereas Christians, such as myself, believe that God the Father, God the Son
and God the Holy Spirit are three persons, if you will, but One and the Same -- three manifestations of the same Person, you
might say.

So we shared our views and abbreviated arguments with each other (time wasn't exactly on our side), and soon thereafter they
said they had an appointment to get to. So I went back to work on my wall, and as I polished it off I found my mind latching
onto this one particular portion of our conversation ... this idea of the Nature of God.

Is He One, or is He three, or both? Mormonism's founder, convicted con artist Joseph Smith, claimed that while he was in the
woods seeking the truth about God, there appeared to him a vision in which he saw God the Father and God the Son, both
physical beings, distinct from one another. My new friend Alpha Mormon also mentioned, by way of arguing his position,
the Bible passages about Moses seeing God with his own two eyes, the earth-bound Jesus praying to our Father in Heaven,
and the fact that we humans are made in God's image. How could Jesus pray to the Father unless they were (and are) two
separate beings? How could we humans be the reflection of God's image unless God, too, has a physical, material body? And
how could Moses physically see God unless God had a fleshly body akin to ours?

Good questions all, and as I began to consider them I experienced what so many Christians go through from time to time --
questions, doubt of a sort. I'm fortunate that God has brought me a great deal of the way through the scourge known as anxiety
disorder, which has often caused me to panic when faced with such questions of doubt. I forced myself to think calmly, and soon
the answers began to come to me.

The Bible says that God is Spirit -- thus the Christian contention that Mormonism's claim of a physical, separate God the Father is
bunk. But He made us in His image. Yes, He did. God is indeed Spirit, but for some reason unknown to me at least, God --
whenever He first decided to take human form, caused Himself to take on the form we know as the human body. Remember,
"image" connotes something visible, something you can see with your bodily eyes, so yes, God has a physical body ... when He
chooses to. Thus, when He allowed Moses to the see the back of Him, it was indeed the back of His physical body ... but this isn't
what you'd call God's "natural" state. God is first and foremost Spirit, which is invisible to the human eye, and in this way, too,
we're made in His image: we've been given His spiritual make-up -- made to have His character, His personality, His attitudes. So
the "image of God" comprises the spiritual and the physical, and we do indeed resemble Him in both ways, yet the physical state
isn't God's position of origin, but something He can go in to and out of at will. This is how Moses could physically see Him; this is
how we are -- physically and spiritually -- the reflection of His image.

This also -- coupled with God's omnipresence: the fact that He's everywhere at the same time -- explains how Jesus (God the Son,
here on Earth in the flesh) was able to pray to God the Father in Heaven. But surely God wouldn't pray to Himself? I'm not sure
it's as simple as that. The fact that I talk to MYself notwithstanding, the relationship of the Trinity is something unparalleled in all
of existence. There is no other entity that has the relationship with itself that God has with Himself. In fact, the Bible teaches that
the Godhead -- Father, Son, Spirit -- enjoys perfect communion and never had need to go outside Itself (though I'm thankful He
CHOSE to go outside Himself to share Himself with us). Jesus even said, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father" -- because Jesus
and the Father, along with the Holy Spirit, are multiple expressions of One and the same God. Yes Jesus also said, "I do nothing
except what my Father in Heaven tells me to do." Therefore, in much the same way that Jesus is a true paradox (in that He is both
fully human and fully God), so the Trinity and its inner workings, its relationship(s) with Itself, is a true paradox, beyond our full
comprehension. Not to sound simple, but I'm sure that Mormons would agree with me in saying that God is all-powerful, that
God created everything that exists, so why should He not be able to "speak to Himself"?

I admit that I can't wrap my mind around it all,  but in our own nature we see the Trinitarian nature reflected: our spiritual make-up
modeled after the Holy Spirit, our physical body modeled after Jesus (God in the flesh), and our personhood (character, personality,
etc.) modeled after the Father. Anyone who's on top of things knows that the creature known as "human being" is complex, a blend
of body, soul and spirit, of physical, mental and emotional, yet we exist, we "commune" within ourselves and have "relationship"
within ourselves (as when our physical condition threatens to dictate our mental, emotion and spiritual conditions, and a struggle
for balance ensues). I'm not saying that the answer to the "Jesus talking to the Father" situation is cut and dried, as easy as 1+1=2,
but to say it's impossible is to deny our own nature and the image in which we're made ... and the One in whose image we're made.