Got Community?

The Trinity models perfect community

This article is part of the Claritas spring 2024 issue, Home. Read the full print release here.

By: jason lan

As I put my AirPods on transparency mode, the muted conversations of the Physical Sciences Building come to life. The guys at the table to my right are stressing about tomorrow’s organic chemistry prelim. The couple on my left go over their differential equations homework one last time; they cannot continue working on it, the physics prelim they haven’t studied for is in four hours. 

That paper isn’t gonna start itself, I think to myself. I need to finish a philosophy essay due at midnight. I see two round tables in front of me and consider finding a seat. There are only four open seats at the first, so I pursue the one a little further away. There, I can sit on the opposite side of its sole occupant. As I put my bag down, they give me a piercing look as if to say, “What are you doing here?” Immediately, I get up, embarrassed at the interaction. It’s past 3 p.m., so maybe Zeus has an open table. As I leave the atrium, the noise quickly dies down, but I can’t help but think of just how eerily silent it truly felt.

Walking around clubfest on Saturday, I am bombarded with organizations telling me that, by joining them, I will get the internship of my dreams. Questions about networking opportunities, resume reviews, and first-round interviews fly around me, but the only real word I can truly make out is “people,” as in, “the people make this club what it is.” Later, I make one last trip through the now sparsely populated tables at the end of clubfest. Conversations are clearer now, yet the word “people” is just as popular as before, as in, “the people are useless; they don’t do anything the way I want it done.” I silently cross clubs off my list; these are the clubs I won’t be applying to. No clubs remain when I walk out.

Cornell likes to advertise itself as a hub for collaboration, but students often find it hard to leave behind a mindset focused on “the self.” Collaborative spaces tend to be isolating: tables meant for six are monopolized by one in Morrison Dining Hall; collaborative classrooms in Goldwin Smith are almost always silent, save for the occasional discussion section. Beyond physical spaces, our organizations are also at fault. The heading of one business ethics club’s website tells viewers what they stand to “gain” from joining the club. [1] Even when students create spaces for collaboration, our conversations are marred with a focus on the pursuit of self. This isn’t to say that groups are trying to intentionally create spaces of pure self-improvement without a sense of community, but it is to point out that our messaging can unintentionally inhibit cooperation.

And maybe this isn’t all a bad thing. It is precisely this focus on the value of the individual that helps us understand how to love one another. For example, we can comfort a friend in anguish because we may have once anguished. Focusing on how we felt at the time allows us to be empathetic towards others who have been hurt, and empathy is a significant contributor to our ability to love. It helps build the cornerstone of family and community. While this love cannot be ignored, our focus on self-improvement has also caused much of our social and academic environment to become toxically competitive. 

How then, can we apply the Christian model to what we see around us on campus? The Christian model is meant to be a communal one. Jesus Himself makes this clear through His incarnation. The third chapter of the Gospel of Mark recounts one of Jesus’ healings in Galilee. He is surrounded by crowds, and his parents become worried and search for Him. When they find Him, He makes a bold statement, calling Himself “one with humanity,” stating that “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” [2] Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane also shows His desired communion with humanity. Even in moments of isolation, Jesus does not see Himself as being alone; the vast majority of His prayer is for the world and the disciples whom He loves. [3] 

Our understanding of ourselves, however, goes far further than this: it involves the whole Trinity. The very way we ought to be—our very model of being—lies within the Persons of the Trinity and the way they interact with one another as One. This makes sense, given that God’s name is the first-person conjugation of to be, namely, I Am. [4] Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, puts it best: as the Persons of the Trinity are in eternal communion with each other, our very being ought to be in communion with others. The Persons of the Trinity do not have their full identity apart from one another. God the Father knows that He is the maker of heaven and earth, but He does not know that He is the Father without the eternally begotten God the Son. God the Son knows that He is the Son only because of God the Father. However, even if these two exist in isolation, the full actualization of their identities cannot occur. To complete our understanding of being, we need God the Holy Spirit, the very love that connects God the Father and God the Son. [5] In the same way that God cannot know fully who God is without the fullness of the Trinity, we cannot actualize our full being without a concept of the self-being intimately connected to the other. I do not know who I am without intimately knowing—and being known by—another. A self-focused ontology—meaning a self-focused understanding of being—will never allow us to experience the fullness of humanity. This means our concepts of self-help, self-care, and self-improvement will never actualize what they seek, namely, a better self.

So then, what is the answer to our quest for a better humanity? Community? Family? There are many organizations on campus whose main purpose is to create these things, so why do we see so much suffering around us? Our Trinitarian model is not complete. Even while institutions like Greek Life and interest groups offer a great opportunity for community, we are all familiar with their shortcomings: cliqueness, competition for e-board positions, and in the case of Greek Life, hazing. How then do we find our answer to a truly communal and loving ontology?

The answer lies in the final part of the Trinity: God’s oneness in essence. As Christians, while we profess the tri-personhood of God, we also confess His oneness in essence. When God moves, we don’t say that it’s only the Father or Spirit who moves; we confess that all of God is truly present. This idea of being one in essence is quite important. When we don’t see ourselves as one, we get hurt and hurt those around us. One example of this comes from Zeta Beta Tau. When ZBT was put on probation back in 2018 for reports of a pledge “pig roast” that dehumanized and objectified women, they were quick to respond, saying that events were not “chapter sanctioned” and brothers were “not aware” of what happened. [6] This ignored, at the very least, the fact that these same brothers were the ones who selected these pledges. While we can say that this fits the Trinitarian model in the sense that people were intimately connected in community, the rejection of the oneness of such a community allowed for this violence to occur. When one Greek Letter Organization is suspended for hazing or sexual misconduct, every other organization is quick to absolve themselves, washing their hands like Pontius Pilate, stating that they don’t engage in such acts while allowing the violence to perpetuate elsewhere. The effect is structural: Students don’t see Greek Life as good, and instead, as one Cornell professor put it, they see it as a “cultural cancer.” [7] Now, this essay isn’t meant to just be a hit piece on Greek Life, but we can certainly learn many lessons from past failures. Just as how from one man’s sin death entered into the whole world, one individual can have lasting effects on an entire institution. Greek Life may be an extreme example, but we can see this, to different degrees, in many other places: certain business clubs saying that they have a unique culture of collaboration and inclusivity not always seen in other organizations, pre-med students claiming that they’re “not toxic like the other pre-meds,” and Cornell students distancing themselves from the very institution they pay thousands to attend. No matter what we may do as individuals, when we say “not all of us” or “not me,” we allow actual problems or discrimination to continue. When this happens, all of us, as one entity, cannot flourish. Thus, we function as one. [8] When one part of our community falls short of expectations, we should think of it as all of us falling short. When we see how we all fall short, we realize our common responsibility to love our neighbors, which Jesus says is just as important as love of God. Only when we realize this love will we finally be able to understand what it means to have a home. 

So why does all of this matter to us here and now? What are the first steps we ought to take to realize our communal ontology? Cornellians suffer from chronic loneliness perpetuated by transactional relationships and imposter syndrome despite the 1,600 clubs and communities on campus. We aren’t searching for a community, we’re searching for a home, a home not provided by our clubs, classes, or research labs. And we can begin to lay the groundwork for such a home to exist here. Our first step must be to recognize the failings of self-focused work, and our next step must be to realize our oneness with each other. 

The first step can look like recognizing the importance of our friends, acquaintances, and colleagues in the formation of who we are. Through this, we develop a greater and greater appreciation for how they affect us and contribute to who we want to be, and we become more and more uncomfortable with the idea of separating ourselves or ghosting them, no matter how distant they are in our lives. The next step can look like recognizing that we are core contributors to the institutions we participate in. Knowing our ties to these institutions, we must actively engage with them as though they are part of ourselves. This means working constantly and consistently towards bettering our spaces, keeping others accountable, and taking on institutional responsibility when we see parts of it failing. In the same way we would wash, bandage, and ice our own arm after we trip and fall, we must do the same for our institutions when they trip and fall. This is what it means to be the unified body of Christ. I believe that the Christian model is the best way to achieve our home, to achieve human flourishing. For God the Son came down as Jesus Christ, taking on the form of man, lower than that of the angels, so He could once again commune with humanity, so that, if we die to sin with Him in His death and rise in one life with His resurrection, we may enjoy the fullness of what it means to be human: to be one with God.

[1] “ASATT Members Develop Professionally + Personally.” A Seat at the Table.

[2] Mark 3:35 (RSV-CE)

[3] John 17 (RSV-CE)

[4] John 8:58 (RSV-CE)

[5] Zizioulas, John D. Being as Communion. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

[6] Subramaniam, Anu. “Report of ‘Pig Roast’ Contest.” The Cornell Daily Sun.

[7] Schwarz, Dan. “ The Shame of the Greek System.” The Cornell Daily Sun.

[8] Lunot, Treydon. “The Trinitarian Nature of Being.” telosbound, 2023.