Abstract
“Why do you spend so much time on the outer circumference of the inner life you want to lead?”
I am challenged by the question James Finley asked at a recent retreat. Being a scientist and a writer of philosophical essays and poems, I am conflicted about how to approach the question and its implications for me. My conflict emanates from the claim that the inner life is a manifestation of the presence of You-Know-Who, about whose presence I have been less than certain.
One limitation many scientists have is the tendency to disbelieve a thing is unless it has been proven to be so. Underappreciated is that it is not proof by scientific methodology we ultimately value, but the product of that process: knowing. Thus enter theologians, who say they know but, technically, have no physical proof of the existence of the deity they treasure.
One reason questioners hesitate is our objection to the anthropomorphic characteristics many “believers” still assign to the Divine, what Cyprian Smith calls “our limited imagery.”2 Shortly after our son, Zachary died, in a plane crash, friends invited our family to dinner. The topic of faith arose and our host declared that he had “an unshakable faith.” He said his conversion was due to what he perceived to be divine intervention when the car he was driving went off a mountain road and rolled over several times. The car demolished, he and his children were unharmed. What he was unknowingly and hurtfully claiming was that God intervened in his case but not in Zachary’s (whose plane crash occurred the same day a jetliner “miraculously” landed safely on the Hudson River). Such selective intervention would make God a monster, in my view.
Yet, some make such claims, no matter how trivial the incident. What they say feels so wrong I have concluded they are in violation of the theological principle that “Faith is not sitting down on a chair that isn’t there.” What feels right is Meister Eckhart’s declaration, intending to shock us into understanding that God is far beyond human characteristics, “God is not good. God is not wise.”
I have experienced many brilliant scientists and holy people, living and dead. Journeying toward guidance has come more from the holy ones. I have been to Iona. I have spent contemplative time in Thomas Merton’s hermitage at Gethsemani. I am married to a sage. Deeply grieving after Zachary’s death, I read John O’Donohue’s poem, On the Death of the Beloved, and committed myself to what is described in the last stanza: “To enter each day with a generous heart. To serve the call of courage and love.”
I have abandoned the rational approach to determining God’s presence, which is futile. I have learned that spiritual knowing comes from other means, not unlike that in T.S. Eliot’s assertion, “Like music, poetry should communicate before it is understood.”
Mystic traditions speak of finding God in the metaphoric human heart. I know this to be true without thought. I know because in a long, unburdened moment I held my infant granddaughter close and stared deeply into her eyes, as she stared deeply into mine. And my unburdened heart spoke, “I am looking at the Face of God.” Sensing my consummate love for her, I wonder if her heart felt so, too.