Thomas and Courtney,
as this celebration of your marriage
has been approaching,
I have been thinking a lot,
as this celebration of your marriage
has been approaching,
I have been thinking a lot,
as one does,
about 17th-century philosophers.
Two in particular:
about 17th-century philosophers.
Two in particular:
Baruch Spinoza and Blaise Pascal.
Spinoza and Pascal
lived in a much larger universe than people
who lived just a few generations before them.
The inventions of the telescope and the microscope
revealed a world both much larger and much smaller
than the tidy, earth-centered cosmos
that humanity had lived with
since time immemorial.
It was dizzying, and kind of threatening,
to be displaced from the center of the universe
into some undetermined place
between the infinitely large
and the infinitely small.
lived in a much larger universe than people
who lived just a few generations before them.
The inventions of the telescope and the microscope
revealed a world both much larger and much smaller
than the tidy, earth-centered cosmos
that humanity had lived with
since time immemorial.
It was dizzying, and kind of threatening,
to be displaced from the center of the universe
into some undetermined place
between the infinitely large
and the infinitely small.
For Spinoza,
this dizziness could be cured by thinking,
because he believed that
this dizziness could be cured by thinking,
because he believed that
as far as the universe extended,
thought extended just as far.
At least in principle,
we could calculate all causes
and understand the how and why of everything.
He seemingly found peace in this.
thought extended just as far.
At least in principle,
we could calculate all causes
and understand the how and why of everything.
He seemingly found peace in this.
Pascal, on the other hand,
believed that thinking could only do so much:
we can think just enough to recognize
how fragile and uncertain our lives are,
how we might be taken out
by something immensely big, like a class-five rapid,
or by something immensely small, like a virus.
But at the end of the day, this thought
seems only to increase our dizziness
or, as Pascal put it, our wretchedness.
believed that thinking could only do so much:
we can think just enough to recognize
how fragile and uncertain our lives are,
how we might be taken out
by something immensely big, like a class-five rapid,
or by something immensely small, like a virus.
But at the end of the day, this thought
seems only to increase our dizziness
or, as Pascal put it, our wretchedness.
But the limits of thought
were not the end of the story for Pascal,
because he believed that in addition
to the thinking capacity of reason
we have a capacity that he called “the heart,”
and, as he famously put it,
“the heart has its reasons
about which reason knows nothing.”
were not the end of the story for Pascal,
because he believed that in addition
to the thinking capacity of reason
we have a capacity that he called “the heart,”
and, as he famously put it,
“the heart has its reasons
about which reason knows nothing.”
It is the heart that can acknowledge
reason’s inability to master the universe,
and yet embrace that universe,
in all of its danger and promise,
with a kind of humility.
It is the heart that speaks
in Hopkins’ poem “Inversnaid,”
in which words slip the bounds the reason,
abandon their mission of meaning,
so that our hearts can feel and know and love
the wet and the wildness of the streams
cascading their way down to a highland lake.
It is the heart that seeks the still point
amid the rushing immensities
of the infinitely large
and the infinitely small,
the still point where we can stand
as we take the infinite into ourselves.
reason’s inability to master the universe,
and yet embrace that universe,
in all of its danger and promise,
with a kind of humility.
It is the heart that speaks
in Hopkins’ poem “Inversnaid,”
in which words slip the bounds the reason,
abandon their mission of meaning,
so that our hearts can feel and know and love
the wet and the wildness of the streams
cascading their way down to a highland lake.
It is the heart that seeks the still point
amid the rushing immensities
of the infinitely large
and the infinitely small,
the still point where we can stand
as we take the infinite into ourselves.
For Christians like Pascal and Hopkins,
as for me,
that still point is found above all in Jesus,
whom Pascal described as “a God
whom we approach without pride,
and before whom we humble ourselves
without despair” (Pensées 245).
But, as Hopkins says in another poem,
“Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”
as for me,
that still point is found above all in Jesus,
whom Pascal described as “a God
whom we approach without pride,
and before whom we humble ourselves
without despair” (Pensées 245).
But, as Hopkins says in another poem,
“Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”
Thomas and Courtney,
I believe that amid the glorious chaos
of this infinite world
your hearts have found the still point
in one another’s faces.
You have found in each other
that point of equipoise
that turns the wildness of the world
from threat into promise,
that point where you can stand
to take in infinity,
to rejoice in the wet and the wildness,
the weeds and the wilderness.
I believe that amid the glorious chaos
of this infinite world
your hearts have found the still point
in one another’s faces.
You have found in each other
that point of equipoise
that turns the wildness of the world
from threat into promise,
that point where you can stand
to take in infinity,
to rejoice in the wet and the wildness,
the weeds and the wilderness.
May the one who plays in ten thousand places
bless the love you have pledged to each other,
opening your eyes to the miracle of one another,
speaking to your hearts in times of hardship,
and giving you and those you love years of joy.
bless the love you have pledged to each other,
opening your eyes to the miracle of one another,
speaking to your hearts in times of hardship,
and giving you and those you love years of joy.
