In the Middle of Infinity

As a way of helping people experience the incomprehensible transcendence of God, I showed a clip from the IMAX mini-documentary “The Cosmic Voyage” in my sermon this last week. Starting with a circle one meter in diameter, the film zooms out from earth toward the edge of the known universe, providing us with a scale by delineating each circle that is ten times the size of the previous circle. You can experience a nice You Tube version of this “power of ten” exercise here. (By the way, this film was made in 1996, and some of its information is a little dated. But I don’t think this adversely affects the impact of the clip).

Though I didn’t have time to show it in the sermon, the “The Cosmic Voyage” does a similar mind-bending exercise zooming in on smallness. Beginning with a tiny droplet of water on a leaf, it zooms in on a microscopic organism inside the droplet and then down to the cells, the DNA and finally the quantum particles within the organism. A sped up version of it, starting at the edge of the known universe, can be found here. This clip illustrates the truth that we are to the smallest known sub-atomic particles what the vastness of the universe is to us.  There is as much “small-reality” beneath us as there is “large-reality” above us.

In this light we can think of ourselves situated in the middle of a virtual infinity extending beneath us into incomprehensible smallness and extending above us into incomprehensible vastness. (I say virtually infinite because there’s no known finite terminus point at which our mind can stop in its thinking toward the large or the small, or in our thinking about God who encompasses both extremes. To be accurate, therefore, our thought must retain an “etc. etc.” quality to it that can only be described as “not finite” [= infinite]).

After putting my sermon together the other day, I sat on my deck and observed my environment while remaining aware of being situated in the middle of this virtual infinity extending in both directions. That is, I was conscious of events taking place around me (for everything is at its core an event) against the backdrop of a simultaneous awareness of the infinitely large and the infinitely small.  The bug crawling on the post, the leaves bustling in the breeze, the birds skirting by over head, the random memory that just popped into my head, the dandelion seeds whisking past me, the slowly evolving cloud formations– all were experienced with an awareness of billions of spinning galaxies, each spanning hundreds of millions of light years and each containing hundreds of billions of burning stars as well as an awareness of the innumerable sub-atomic particles popping in and out of existence within each of the smallest fractions of a centimeter in my observed environment. This exercise heightened my awareness of everything.

I was also aware that in doing this, I wasn’t engaging in some sort of mental trick. I was rather simply trying to get my consciousness to align itself with reality by including as much of reality in each observed moment as I could. I was, in essence, simply trying to observe events in their truest context.

Though I can’t claim my awareness remained unbroken, I found that with a little effort I was able to retain this bi-focus of infinity as long as I wished. In fact, I’ve tried to retain this awareness as much as possible since this time and have found that it’s no harder to sustain (but also no easier) than simply remaining aware of God’s presence on a moment-by-moment basis. Yet, this exercise adds a new dimension to the “practice of the presence” (Brother Lawrence) by incorporating the awareness of awe-inspiring largeness and smallness.

I encourage you to try this discipline of situating your awareness of each experienced event in the middle of infinity above and below.  I’m finding it very helpful in keeping my mind free from its fallen tendency toward self-centered myopia. I’m also discovering it helpful in remaining in the joy and peace of the Kingdom. Among other things, our problems are only as big as the frame of reference we experience them in. When our frame of reference is no bigger than our very small and very short lives, our problems will often seem extremely large, for the same reason an ant experiences a blade of grass like a skyscraper. When our frame of reference is the infinite above and infinite below, however, our problems become infinitely small.

Of course, our own lives are experienced as infinitely small when situated in the middle of infinity. In the total scheme of things, the gap between the years of our life and the nanosecond existence of a quantum particle is pretty insignificant. If we’re not careful, this can work against us by making us feel extremely insignificant if not close to non-existent.

For this reason, perhaps the most important aspect of the discipline of situating your experience in the middle of infinity is remembering that the Creator, for whom the virtual infinity of the physical world is itself microscopic, is a God of perfect love. The incomprehensible greatest of God’s glory expressed in the unfathomable vastness of reality above us and unimaginable smallness and complexity of reality below us is exceeded only by the absolutely unlimited, unending and unwavering perfection of God’s love.

As we stay awake to the infinite, therefore, we must remember that the power that holds in existence every quantum particle and every galaxy — and you — is the love that was expressed on Calvary. The awe-inspiring vastness and smallness of created reality should be viewed as a pointer to the even more awe-inspiring magnitude of God’s love. Though we are microscopic in size next to the vastness of the universe, the Creator loves each of us as if we were the only being he created.  For a God of unlimited love, size does not matter.

I encourage you to embark on the discipline of including as much reality in your awareness as you can, moment-by-moment. Try to remain aware of being situated in the middle of infinity – and surrounded every nanosecond by the infinite intensity of God’s burning, Calvary-like love.

Pacis exsisto vobis