The Infinite Light
For as long as I can remember being familiar with the notion of God, I can remember myself having a thousand different questions about it. What is he? Is he a man? Why is he portrayed in so many different ways? How is it that some people claim to hear him? How do others experience him? Does he exist? Why don’t I experience God?
You see, I am an agnostic.
I do not see any proof for the existence of a God, however, I am not so arrogant as to claim that God, in whatever form you may choose to see it, does not exist. In my experience, it is not possible to prove the existence, or non-existence of a God. For thousands of years, believers and non believers, many of them smarter than me, have argued in vain over one of life’s great mysteries. That being said, this article isn’t about the existence of God. I am not here to criticize believers or non-believers. I am going to try to explain my attempt at experiencing the beauty and the awe of what believers have described to me as experiencing God.
I am very much a believer in science, logic, and generally, facts, and can thus best approach God from that perspective. To get there, we will start with a poem by the great jazz singer, Kurt Elling. On his 1997 album “The Messenger”, Elling wrote the lyrics to the song “The Beauty of all Things”, that shares a number of ideas about God.
The poem:
There is something within you.
There is something in everything that is:
Unbelievable beauty, flowing from deep inside.
Don’t be shocked or surprised if I lift your disguise.
Realize that I can see it in all things, all, but especially you.
There is something we carry,
Like a rhythm that tells us who we are.
It’s the rhythm of living. Hear, and we’ll come to see
who we can really be-fore Time erases time.
It’s sublime. And I can see it in all things, all, but especially you.
The time is upon us to lose our indifference.
For Time isn’t holding us anywhere. I declare:
Life gives savoir faire.
Clean the windows of your inner star
And see things as they are:
An infinity of light like a torch in the night.
For the Sun and the Moon and the Stars
Are living within you.
You are shining in everything that is.
Here’s what I see in your eyes right now:
Ten thousand lives over many years like leaves on the vine of this morning’s glory,
The determination of years coming to fruition
In the ever-present now of your life, unfolding now in the flowering of days.
The constellation of stars in the sky are like a fugue of light in velvet hands.
The melody never ends, echoing again and again.
Nearer still sounds a melody leading through darkened rooms,
Playing like the Sun on the water; like its reflection in your downcast eyes.
When will you come to see you like I do?
And know you like I do? And hear you like I do?
And love you like I do?
The poem has raised a number of questions for me, such as “is it possible for ‘the Sun and the Moon and the Stars’ to be living within us? I’ve always been amazed by the thought that we are, in essence, made up of our planet’s recycled fauna and flora. The notion of ashes to ashes, dust to dust, while being in some ways morbid and creepy, has also been incredibly comforting. However, in my mind this was only subject to our planet. Never did I considered the notion that we may actually be made up of particles from around the cosmos. That was, until I came across this quote by famed Astro-physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson:
“The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth — the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems- stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up- many people feel small, cause their small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars.”
As Mr. Tyson puts it, “that makes me want to grab people on the street and say: ‘Have you HEARD THIS!’”
When I learned this, I felt like Max Delius, when he “discovered heaven” in Harry Mulisch’s great movie (turned great film) “The Discovery of Heaven”.
But it’s not so epic. Nor is it quite so cathartic. It’s just this notion of pure and simple amazement that the universe is so complex that we can be made of the same particles that make up distant stars. That is amazing! It’s doesn’t make me believe in any kind of “intelligent being” that has designed and planned everything, nor does it conjure up any images of a bearded man in a white robe, with leather sandals. It does, however, bring me great joy, and respect for our universe, knowing that such complexity, and equally — simplicity — exists. I believe it is this joy that people of all faiths share, however they may choose to label it.
I leave you with this:
