Finding Transcendence in an Ordinary World
I have written elsewhere that purpose is the holy grail of human existence. I reaffirm that sentiment here. The desire for meaning, for a teleology of life, is an incurable condition in the human heart, its quest a journey that no man or woman can resist. Even those poor, sodden souls who labor in the abstract of rhetoric to deny and declaim the existence of the divine pursue in the shadows of practice an earthly proxy of transcendence. It is irrelevant whether their appetite be for the ecstasy of sensuality, for the status of invincibility, for the acclaim of the cognoscenti, for the glamour of wealth, for the glory of fame, for the caress of a lover, or for the affections of family and friends; in every case it is the irresistible call of meaning that drives them insatiably onward into the deepest caves of darkness and upward to the very pinnacles of creation. Without pausing to recognize the irony, man in abject rebellion against eternity proves its existence by pining ever more desperately for its substitute.
Yet we who profess to have discovered the God who made us are no less slavish in our need. Indeed, because we have tasted of the divine life and, however fleetingly, caught sight of things unseen, our hearts beat with an even greater insistence to know and experience the rapture of the transcendent. We read the miracle stories of the Old and New Testaments and wonder at the sovereign God who deigned to appear with the sword of deliverance and the gentle ministrations of comfort in answer to prayer. In astonishment, we read of burning bushes and chariots of fire and visible angels and entire seas that recede with a breath of wind. We read of whole kingdoms falling and other kingdoms rising in their place in accordance with a solitary decree from the heavenly throne. At last, we read of the everlasting man, Jesus of Nazareth, keeper of divine mysteries, fulfiller of ancient prophecies, who touched paralytics and men born blind and made them whole, who spoke to the dead and called them back to life, and who transformed generations of thought with the authority of the words: “You have heard it said . . . but I tell you.” Unless we are jaded by an unthinking rationalism (whether worldly or theological, it does not matter), these stories, rather than slaking our thirst for the divine, feed that thirst until the demand in our souls for glimpses of transcendence in our ordinary world reaches a fever pitch. It is then that we cry out with Moses: “Show us thy glory!”
What happens, though, when the skies are silent? What happens when time refuses to stand still, when the ordinary stares back at us blankly, its expression unchanged? What happens when the gates of Heaven, once so brilliant with imagined light, fade into nothingness like tendrils of a failed dream? I have asked these questions repeatedly in recent months as I have struggled to find meaning in my work. I am a young attorney just starting his practice. I work predominantly in the field of business litigation and occasionally dabble in real estate transactions and estate planning. As all attorneys, I struggle to balance the ethical demands of my profession with my fiduciary obligations to my clients. As an attorney who is also a Christian, I wrestle more than most of my colleagues with the ineradicable ambiguities presented by client representation: How do I know that, between my client and the other side, my client is not the one who is obscuring the truth? And what if he is prevaricating? Is it righteous to represent his interests as zealously as the rules of ethics require? Moreover, even assuming his honesty, what if his grievances are purely selfish and, if redressed, will result not in the vindication of peace but the expansion of strife and division in the world? What if his cause, however valid under law, will wreck the life, or life’s work, of another? Where is the justice in such an outcome? Where, ultimately, is the hand of God in such an outcome? Where are the miracles of Jesus in the heart of darkness that is modern American law? To be frank, I have no answers to these questions. I do know, however, that I cannot flee to the hills because I am certain that God has called me to be an attorney. Consequently, I have concluded that my present posture must be twofold: First, I must engage the work before me with devotion, rectitude, and excellence. Second, I must keep watch for glimpses of transcendent purpose in the conflict and banality of my workplace. Although every day presents a new challenge in the latter respect, through prayer and the encouragement and exhortation of others I have begun to make hesitant, though noticeable, progress.
One of the catalysts for my advancement has been the following epiphany: The ordinary world (which includes but is not limited to the world of work) is not actually very ordinary when you stop and think about it. The world certainly appears ordinary because its countenance is familiar. But beneath the customary façade lies a teleological portal of such profundity that the wisdom of sages and kings appears prosaic in its presence. To access this portal, one need only peer behind the curtain of the expected and inquire into the nature of things. For example, one could ask the following question: Why beauty? Why is a spring meadow so spectacularly verdant? Why does the dogwood bloom in carnelian and white in early April? Why does the red maple radiate crimson glory in late October? Why is the granite of a mountain spire, glistening with snow, so breathtaking? Why do waves break upon the shore in captivating mist and thunder? Why does the setting sun paint the western sea a resplendent canvas of pastels? Why do my wife’s flaxen curls catch the afternoon light so delicately? Why are the song of the nightingale and the music of Beethoven so pleasant to the ears? Why does the silvered moon smile upon the earth amidst a patterned quilt of stars? Societies ancient and modern have celebrated the ever-changing visual splendor of the world. Yet in our patented haste we moderns rarely pause to contemplate its existence. Why the prisms of light and color that embroider the earth with aesthetic richness? Why the omnipresence of beauty in the world?
To be quite frank, there is simply no good reason for it. The world could have been plain, or even wretched, without altering its functionality. With a little creative thinking, one can imagine a multitude of possible worlds in which the diverse visages of beauty that we take for granted every day would be absent. Or, taking a different approach, we humans could have been born blind to beauty and detached from the dimension of the aesthetic, perceiving majesty and squalor with equal indifference. Yet neither of these hypothetical existences is our existence. We are creatures who wonder at form and revel in the proximity of loveliness. And ours is a planet with endless vistas of glory and grandeur. Given the plausible counterfactuals, therefore, it must be admitted that beauty is entirely gratuitous; it defies the axiom, otherwise well-taken, that nothing is free in this world. As such, beauty cannot but be pregnant with purpose, the intention and gift of a gracious providence.
How does all this connect with my work? In the following respect: No matter the inscrutable riddles posed by my profession, when I take my eyes off my computer screen, off the multitude of legal files that clutter my desk, off the blinking voicemail light on my telephone reminding me of messages I don’t really have time to deal with, and turn my eyes upon the resplendence of the world around me—sea and sky, mountains and moonbeams, flowers and fields and forests—I am granted, for precious seconds, a true and uncomplicated glimpse into the divine bosom, the wellspring of life and all things good and meaningful. Too, I am reminded that, by some equally gratuitous gift, I have been invited to participate in this vast forum of beauty and to display in my own form and countenance the very fingerprint of God. Nevertheless, such a change in perspective is only efficacious as long as the memory of beauty is fresh. Thus I have found it necessary to break up the intellectual patterns of my practice with spontaneous, yet frequent, glances out my window at the sun-dappled maple leaves and even, on occasion, to leave my office and take short walks beneath the sapphire sky. The latter outlet, of course, is significantly more invigorating but less practical, given the ever-present demands of my work. The former outlet, however, is always available, and its habit I have been teaching myself to relish even on the dreariest of days.
Beyond the gratuitous presence of beauty, a multitude of additional gateways into transcendence are similarly discernable in the landscape of the ordinary when one asks the right questions. Take the phenomenon of community, for instance. Why are humans communal creatures? Why do we long for relationships with others of our kind? Why do we mourn when one we love is lost to us, through distance, alienation or death? Why do we shed tears and smile with delight when confronted with the surprise of reunion? Why do we yearn to share our stories with others and to hear them tell us theirs? Why does a bedridden man ask for his wife to sit at his bedside? Why does the elderly widow pine for the simple call and response of conversation? Why do I take such unmitigated delight in the simplest gestures, expressions and motions of my bride? As with beauty, the commonplace world of human relationships could have been quite different from the reality with which we are acquainted. We could have been born hermaphroditic and given the instinct of hermits. We could have been placed in worlds all our own, utterly isolated and alone. But we were not. Instead we are surrounded by people of all shapes, sizes and colors who feel the same desperate longing for affection and affirmation that we feel. And every day, in this relational world, we are given the same basic choice between kindness and cruelty. At its essence, therefore, the reality of community reveals that ours as a fundamentally moral universe. And morality is anything but ordinary. Like beauty, morality is redolent with the fragrance of transcendent meaning, for morality demarcates the metaphysical divide between good and evil and remonstrates on behalf of the good.
As one might expect, this recognition applies quite readily to the workaday world: Every interaction I have with another individual, whether a partner, a paralegal, a secretary, a client, or a stranger on the street, is an opportunity to advance the cause of virtue or vice, of decency or depravity. Every conversation in which I participate is an occasion in which I may promote or subvert the cause of goodness in the world. On a practical level, I grant the difficulty inherent in remembering the transmundane consequence of ordinary human interactions, particularly in the workplace where pressures are often intense. It is much easier to concede to frustration when a subordinate makes a costly mistake than it is to demonstrate patience and in humility convey the beneficence of absolution. It is much more natural to ignore the desire of a client to explain the torment of his situation and cut off the conversation with some perfectly legitimate excuse about needing to get back to work than it is to lend an ear and give the precious gifts of time and understanding. It is much less laborious to treat the secretarial staff matter-of-factly on the wavelengths of efficiency and duty than it is to engage them on a personal level, learn about their families and the purpose they have found in living, and show genuine concern and sacrificial flexibility when they are sick or hurting. Yet I have found that each of these quintessentially ordinary situations offers me a golden opportunity to leave an impression of tangible kindness upon the life of another and by that to swim in eternal seas without ever leaving my office. In his first recorded epistle, the Apostle John declares, magnificently, that God is love, thus forging an inextricable link between the essence of the divine and the essential desire of all human beings. From John’s equation it follows that one is closest to God when one lives in accordance with the creed of love. Yet in the West no place exists where love is scarcer, and thus more desperately necessary, than in the rough-and-tumble world of the workplace. In considering this I have come to realize an amazing truth: In love’s calculus, it is a shorter commute from my office chair to the Gates of Heaven than it is from the windswept heights of Everest.
Another window into the everyday presence of transcendence (and this intrinsically related to community) opens when one inquires into the uniquely human capacities of language and reason. How is it possible for one person to share the ephemeral, incorporeal phenomenon of a thought with another person via the aural lexicon of sounds and the visual grammar of letters? When I speak others do not stare at me in incomprehension (except, perhaps, when I—my wife would say unnecessarily—use some arcane polysyllabic word or another). My thoughts, neatly packaged in precisely articulated resonances, penetrate the minds of my hearers and evoke complex and generally intelligible responses—whether intellectual or emotional, or a combination thereof. Then, if time and circumstance permit, my hearers may reply with an equally comprehensible utterance, and together they and I may reason together toward a common understanding. Thus, and quite mysteriously, language is, in our world, the vehicle by which the chasm between consciousnesses may be crossed, and reason is the means by which one’s identity, consciousness and worldview may be sculpted and changed by the stimuli of thought. Indeed, even more than language, reason is particularly extraordinary, for it is under the sway of reason that two minds unite to test the validity of abstract ideas and ultimately to agree or disagree about their truth value. The human capacity—nay, compulsion—for persuasive argumentation, though marshaled by skeptics to disprove the existence of the absolute, actually offers an unshakeable ground for embracing it. For if truth does not exist (or cannot otherwise be ascertained) then argument, which under the direction of reasoning seeks truth as its destination, is rendered unintelligible, the plaything of fools. As a consequence, when I, as a person, or as an attorney, craft an argument to persuade another, I am not simply engaging in intellectual gamesmanship; I am, however unwittingly, reifying the philosophical foundation of my faith and engaging the very same mechanism by which man, wandering amidst the creation, may follow the lighted path of common grace and come to understand something of the eternal power and divine nature of God.
At this juncture, I must admit that such a perspective has conveyed less practical meaning to my work than the habits of beauty’s search and love’s gift. Yet in one respect at least it is no less important to the overall sea change in my worldview. For the lifeblood of my profession is reason. If, therefore, reason were merely the totem of sophistry by whose magic one blessed with a keen intellect and golden tongue may achieve glory despite the inconvenient demands of honor and justice, then I could not in good conscience remain an attorney, let alone an intellectual. Gratefully, however, reason is not solely the weapon of choice of the debaters of the age. It is one of the primary means by which the invisible God reveals himself to the hearts of men, particularly those seekers of wisdom, like a young C.S. Lewis, who hear more intuitively than most the music of eternity in the choir loft of Creation. Reason when conjoined with beauty and enfolded in love can be like Jacob’s ladder, a passport into eternal councils whose mysteries even angels long to explore. By that I mean not to suggest that reason employed to enforce a business contract is as supernal as reason applied to harmonize, for instance, the interaction of divine sovereignty and human free will. Yet the fact of common use cannot rob reason of its transcendent essence. Regardless of context or objective, when one reasons he elucidates the divinely inspired rationality of the universe and evinces his likeness to its Creator. Thus, reason, qua reason, without any requisite supplementation, offers ready entrance into eternal gardens.
In addition to beauty, community, language and reason, one can also detect echoes of the transcendent in the laws of nature when the right questions are asked. For instance, how is it that the force of gravity anchors man and beast to the earth, tethers flying objects into ground-seeking projectile motion, and holds planetary kingdoms in orbit around one another while nevertheless permitting a nearly limitless range of additional motion? How is it that a ray of light propagates at such a remarkable—and remarkably constant—velocity meanwhile exhibiting the fundamentally contradictory properties of a wave (energy traveling through matter) and a particle (energy traveling as matter)? How is it that molecules composed almost exclusively of empty space form the framework for a tactile world of solids and liquids? The most brilliant physicists in the world are even now laboring to synthesize a unified theory that will explain, among other things, the mysteries of gravity, electromagnetism and the atomic forces; yet to date a comprehensive theory remains elusive. That is not to suggest that no such theory will ever be discovered. Recent developments in Super-String Theory have shown exciting promise. Nevertheless, the building blocks of matter and the laws that govern them with such unremitting resolution are anything but blasé. Quite the contrary, they are spellbinding.
That this spherical mass of molten rock encircled by water and soil is even now hurtling around the sun at a speed of 17.9 miles per second (64,500 mph) is awesome enough. That diverse biological organisms from protozoan to blue whales to human beings have not only survived but flourished on its tranquil surface, thanks to, among other factors, a generous, oxygen-rich atmosphere, Jupiter’s gravitational protection from killer interstellar comets and asteroids and the abundance of that simple, polarized substance man has designated H20, is nothing short of miraculous. No matter how unexceptional any given day in my life may feel to me, my mere existence is living proof of a celestial exception of confounding magnitude. Despite hundreds of years of study, literally trillions of dollars of government and private investment, and visionary technology such as the orbital Hubble Space Telescope, which enables us to collect light from and study galaxies more than 12 billion light-years distant, we have yet to discover Earth’s equal in the universe. Extraterrestrial life remains merely a cosmic question-mark, its grand yet utterly unsubstantiated hypothesis in stark contrast to the vibrant fecundity and living history of Earth’s biosphere.
Indeed, it should not surprise us that life itself—particularly human life—is the sine qua non of commonplace transcendence and a mystery beyond compare. How is it that the human heart beats, on average, 86,400 times per day without faltering for seventy or more years? How is it that mere electric impulses in the brain, and the muscle contractions they control, permit a person to drive a spaceship or command a naval fleet or design and construct a nuclear power plant? How is it that, among all possible three-dimensional structures, the erythrocyte (red blood cell) happens to be flexible biconcave, the most efficient, and versatile, configuration possible for the biological transportation of oxygen within the human body? How is it that a mother’s milk contains the perfect—in truth irreproducible—combination of balanced nutrients and antibodies to strengthen the immune system of an infant? How is it that a human stem cell, when introduced into any organ in the body, can reproduce itself as the tissue of that organ without any additional programming? Moving from physiology to psychology, how is it that I, Corban Addison Klug, can possess an identity and personality unique under Heaven? How is it that I am conscious of you and you aware of me? How is it that you and I can both imagine a pink elephant and then discuss its proportions? How is it that I can share in your delight and you empathize with me in my pain? How can either of us begin to fathom the grandest abstraction of all—the idea of God—let alone honestly believe that we have experienced the presence of His Spirit?
At first blush, these inquiries may appear utterly disconnected from my search for needles of glory in the haystack of the American workplace. Yet the truth is quite the opposite. Insofar as work is a subset of life, epiphanies that apply naturally to one’s vision of life have the potential, given proper perspective, to impact one’s relationship to work. I may not think about the wild and perplexing wonders of gravity and electromagnetism in the middle of a conversation with a client, but each day I do walk upon the carpet in my office and work amidst incandescent light. In the same way, I may never develop the instinct of surprise at the astonishing continuity of my heartbeat across the span of millions of pulses in any given year, but as I type letters and legal briefs I cannot long ignore the mellifluous dexterity of my fingers. Nor while writing essays and fiction in my time off can I suppress the awe I feel when the rushing current of philosophical or literary imagination grips my mind and drives me headlong into worlds I have never before seen yet which appear so perfectly real. Whatever your occupation or avocation, I am sure you can, upon brief reflection, find manifold reasons to be amazed at yourself. If you are a teacher, ask yourself: How do you mesmerize a class with otherwise mundane information? If you are a bus driver: How do you round a precarious bend with uncanny precision? If you are a market analyst: How do you predict the future of a stock based upon a handful of charts and a few arcane numbers? If you are an accomplished tennis player: How do you place a hundred-mile-an-hour serve with topspin in the corner of the service box? The content of one’s self-inspection is irrelevant. Whether at work, at home or on the Moon, the life of every human being is literally besieged by evidence of the extraordinary. Indeed, that I am not overcome by the wonder of my own being every morning I awake to a pool of sunlight on my bedroom floor, every minute I luxuriate in the warmth of a shower, every time I select a suit and matching tie from my wardrobe, every occasion I have to navigate my car to the office, and every moment I spend in labor, service and prayer during the day is eloquent testimony to the complacent stupor induced in me by the chloroform of finitude and familiarity. (The same goes for you.)
Unfortunately, life does not offer us a path of complete escape from such powerful sedatives, at least not while we are in the body. However, as I have suggested, a partial antidote exists that can, if regularly applied, ameliorate their effects. In a word the antidote is contemplation, or the Socratic ritual of active thought. Where the unreflective mind will by force of habit remain submerged in the murky sea of minutiae, struggling through makeshift gills to eke out a breath of meaning, the reflective mind may ascend to the surface of the finite and familiar and breathe naturally in the sweet atmosphere of Heaven’s mysteries. It is not that contemplation about the transcendent eliminates the sea of mundane details in which we all must swim. No, as the examples from my workplace make clear, the commonplace will be our constant companion as long as we are residents of this corporeal world. However, like the sun breaking through fog, contemplation clarifies the sea and brings out the oft-hidden shape and form of its transcendent beauty.
Speaking as one who was raised in the evangelical world, I must say that we among the great multitude of Christendom are more ignorant than most of the wise and kindly offices of contemplation. Our Catholic and Orthodox brethren have must to teach us in this regard. Though we may disagree about certain aspects of their theology, we must admit the essential perspicacity and godliness of their reflective traditions, which have sought to culturalize the eternal directive: “Be still and know He is God.” To follow in their footsteps, indeed, moreover, to follow in the footsteps of the shepherd king of Israel who penned and lived such words, we must embark upon a timeworn and tested path toward enlightenment. Like the philosopher we must be willing to inquire into the reality behind the mask of the world. Like the poet we must search for beauty in the unlikeliest of places. Like the scientist we must be zealously devoted to the pursuit of understanding. Finally, and perhaps most important yet at the same time most difficult, like the mystic we must be willing to abide, even to cherish, the companionship of questions unaccompanied by ready and systematized answers.
Sadly, as moderns we are trained from an early age to distrust anything associated with mysticism, for, in the Enlightenment paradigm, mysticism is necessarily coextensive with superstition. Worse, as evangelicals, we are taught from many a pulpit not only to suspect mysticism but also to fear it for its perceived intellectual unruliness and creedal license. Yet mysticism at its root is nothing more than the practice of living in the light of mystery. And Christianity, if anything, is a religion of mysteries. We believe in a Creator God who is at once transcendent and immanent, more, who is in person three yet in essence one. We profess faith in a man who is divine, the only begotten of God yet clothed in mortal flesh, whose purpose in appearing was to die that Death’s own work might be destroyed. We believe that hearts of stone may be transformed into hearts of flesh by an invisible Spirit, yet that human volition is necessary to work out the daily purification of the redeemed. We profess that the world is under the judgment of God for its rebellion but that is also beloved of God and the object of His constant redemptive energies. We believe in a force of moral and spiritual transformation whose power is not evinced in strength but rather made perfect in weakness. We profess a notion of social status by which the last shall be first and the first shall be last. And we promote in an ethic in which he who seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but he who gives it away will find it. Though some will surely disagree, I say that mysticism is the true essence of the Christian faith, for in the person and work of Christ and the Creation He came to save abide the apotheosis and fulfillment of every cosmic mystery that the mind can discern.
Again, however, to swim in the stream of the Spirit, to ascend beyond the banal of the ordinary and hear the song in all that lives and moves and has its being, one must not only accept the mystical content of the Christian faith but also devote himself to the pursuit of divine truth through the medium of mystery. One must not content himself to see only that which appears obvious to the naked eye and the unreflective mind. By the light of penetrating and sustained inquiry, one must look beyond the surface of things and believe that there are invisible layers behind all that can be seen. And one must relish the thought that the knowledge one fancies as advanced in the present is in fact child’s play to the angels. Much like a glass of fine port wine to a teetotaler, questions such as those I have posed in this essay may seem gratuitous to the intellectual palate accustomed to the shallow narrative, insipid humor and trite platitudes delivered by popular entertainment. Nevertheless, like the fruits of the vine, contemplation is an acquired taste freighted with enormous potential. Indeed, to the heart desirous of rubbing elbows with the Most High, contemplation is the golden key in the search of the ages. Best of all, it is universally relevant and can be applied no matter your occupation, Zip Code, or place in life. Whether laboring in a cubicle, collecting recycling containers, flying in a jet, or relaxing on a tropical beach, its alchemy is equally potent. One dose and the circumstances of life will never again look the same.
Applying the wisdom of contemplation, I have shown in these brief pages that the everyday world is literally brimming with signs of the transcendent. Still, it remains for us on a daily basis to embrace in our minds the mystical dimensions of the universe and in the quietness of our souls pursue the God of mystery into His own domain. As I have confessed, the discipline of contemplation is often not easy to maintain in the rush of modernity, let alone in the pressure cooker that is the twenty-first century workplace. Nor may it be natural for many evangelical Christians, consumed as we are with the logical disciplines of exegesis and theology, to appreciate the non-textual, unsystematic benefits of contemplation. Yet the reward of perspective granted by contemplation is priceless. Apart from reflection, it is easy enough to dismiss the routine of daily life as unremarkable at best, a thankless chore at worst. However, with a little admixture of thought and observation, even the contemplative novice should be hard-pressed not to discern glittering traces of the sublime in the familiar contours of the ordinary. For such traces are there; they are everywhere. Moreover, given sufficient time, the contemplative practitioner will most likely conclude, as I have concluded, that when you get right down to it even the simplest constituents of the world defy the very notion of ordinary. For all that is and was and ever will be is something that did not have to be; thus its existence and sustenance are both a mystery and a miracle. Consequently, for any of us to deride even the most quotidian of events in the sequence of existence is to denigrate the majesty of the whole. And to denigrate the majesty of the whole is ultimately to deny the possibility of that very transcendent purpose that our hearts most ardently seek.
Thus we come full circle and arrive again at the observation with which I began this essay. To the theist and atheist alike (indeed, to the polytheist, pantheist and agnostic), purpose is the holy grail of human existence. No matter how elaborate and elegant are man’s attempts to deny it, one cannot maintain a true joie de vivre in the suffocating, poisonous air of nihilism. Thus the instinct to ratify the value of the moment, to live by the creed of carpe diem, is a universal characteristic of humankind. As such, the question before every person is not whether we should seek meaning in the interstices of our lives but whether we will actually find it in a world that elevates the temporal, celebrates ennui and generally does its best to conceal the glory of transcendence written in faint script in the vein of every leaf, in the song of every sparrow, in the sparkle of every eye, in the thoughts and words synthesized by every mind, in the unseen principles of the universe that harness the light from the Sun and turn it into the breath that fills our lungs, and in that divine Person, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Light of the world. Come Monday morning it is altogether too easy for me to consume myself with the mundane and lose sight of the fact that the cosmos and I are transcendent by our mere existence. Still, with God’s help I am learning to direct my thoughts whenever possible into higher channels, into the warm thermals of contemplative Christian mysticism, properly defined, and by that to inscribe upon my heart an accurate vision of the transcendence that everywhere inhabits this ordinary world. If I may, allow me to invite you, dear reader, into the precious and revelatory discipline of contemplation. Regardless of your background, predilections and circumstances, the place of beginnings is simple:
Ask questions.