Proofs, Poetry, Precepts and Proverbs

I grew up thinking myself a logical and critical thinker, someone who is more thrilled in facts, proofs and science than literature, music or art. When I thought about great thinkers names like Newton, Hawking or Galileo came to mind. I could easily navigate my way through a calculus test and was always a bit less excited to try and ‘express myself’ artistically. My talents molded my interests (naturally) and as my academics became consumed with algorithms, equations and lemmas the way I worshiped God became limited to this same style of thought.

I wanted an algorithm or equation which would define my relationship with him. I wanted Paul to tell me how I could make worshipping God as easy as arithmetic. I wanted Jesus to tell me the kingdom of heaven is like integration—once you’ve got it you got it. Instead what I am told is the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, a mustard seed, a merchant looking for fine pearls or yeast—just to note a few of Jesus’ parables. The more I read the bible the more I realize that when trying to describe the Kingdom of Heaven, heavenly truths or God himself, writers tended to employ parable, poetry and proverb, and I found myself frustrated never finding a concrete answer to my questions.

The more that I tried to place God inside of the parameters of some sort of equation the more I found that he slipped outside of them. The more I tried to understand and control God the more he showed himself to be vastly beyond my understanding. ‘Ok,’ I thought to myself, ‘I need to be as good as I possibly can be.’ But then I really read the gospels and found that Jesus was more likely to be in the company of hookers, robbers and frauds. I was confused. ‘Well then,’ my powers of intellect were really carrying me at this point, ‘I just need to be a hooker or a robber.’ But somehow that didn’t make much sense either.

The creative influences of countless people who have understood much better than I have helped me to see that it—following Jesus—isn’t about knowing. It isn’t about having the right answers, and that actually God tends to fall out of our pocket when we just keep him there to pull out and employ when we want the rain to stop or we want a promotion or we want to appear godly. I am learning that it is about worship: that worship is the only thing that I feel I can return to a God so unfathomable, a God without boundaries, a God who turns water into wine, a God who seems to skirt definitions, a God greater than logic.

I have read that there are many ways to worship and experience God, and one of these ways is through mysticism. When I heard that word—mysticism—I thought of crystal balls or Ms. Cleo exclaiming, ‘Call me now!’ in a boisterous Jamaican accent or that book Indian in the Cupboard (not sure why). Instead I am learning that mysticism is not just a thing for gypsies or miniature people, but that I have much to learn from mystical thinkers.

The theologian G.K. Chesterton illustrates the poets (or mystics) approach saying that, “The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician that seeks to get the heavens into his head.” Mysticism is the acknowledgement that many things about God are a mystery to us, a divine mystery, and we can only hope to receive glimpses of heavenly things. Never can we expect to surmise the same power as God, knowing all he knows. We can learn about God, read stories about what he has done and even hear testimonies of his character from those around us but never can we fully understand something so vastly beyond us. Many writers of the bible speak of God not in prose but in poetry because they know that heavenly truths are so great, so immense in size and perfection that they cannot be captured by our minds; we can only hope to align our understanding more with God’s.

The more I quit trying to pin God down, place him in my ‘Things I understand about this world’ category, quit trying to make him a function or equation, the more I understand just how vast and perfect and beautiful and awesome and deserving of my worship he is.

I have always understood that God was unfathomable to us, but it acted as just another piece of the equation instead of actual worship. I know now that when I see the vastness of a mountain range in Fiordland National park, when I see the awesomeness of the glaciers adorning Mt Sefton, when I read the poetry of George MacDonald, when I feel a certain song, when I hear of Davy, Swede, and Rube’s adventures in Peace Like a River, when a meal is shared with those I love, that all these things can all be making me aware of the divine mystery, the wholly, holy incomprehensibly perfect; that at times God comes nearer, that he allows me to experience him and turn in worship for it. I am learning that experiencing and worshipping God is usually more like gazing through a heavenly window than placing him into our logical box.

Reason, logic and knowledge are great and they are something that I still pursue. Understanding how amazingly complex a photon is surely makes me turn and appreciate a Being creative and powerful enough to brings something like this about. Learning how mathematics as a discipline can model almost all that we know about our physical universe certainly excites my heart to know a Creator immense and perfect enough to accomplish this. Yet, still, nothing can define God, nothing can capture him. And often poetry, art, music and landscape can provide us with a momentary glimpse into the heavens.


The one whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou
-Clive Staples Lewis