‘seventy times seven’, front wall with 490 glass prisms. Prestegården Retreat Centre, Vigmostad in Lindesnes 2011.
One finger – three joints. So simple is the doctrine of the Trinity as explained in Celtic spirituality. One prism – three sides, we might add. A regular triangular prism 35 x 35 mm is in itself rather modest until the light strikes, not only one, but many glass prisms. A whole wall of prisms, from top to bottom. In the chapel at Prestegården Retreat Centre at Vigmostad in the community of Lindesnes. The chapel was inaugurated in 2011.
It might have been an arbitrary amount of prisms. It is not. Exactly 490 prisms cover the wall, the result of seventy times seven – which hints at a text according to the evangelist Matthew where Peter asks: ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ ‘I do not say to you seven times’, Jesus answers, ‘but seventy times seven’.
Seventy times seven make so many times that we lose count. We are not meant to count. We should not keep track of each other’s errors. But let go, turn around in light and forgive. As we are ourselves in need of being forgiven. Again and again.