It was in 10th grade Chemistry class that I was first introduced to a not-well-understood phenomena that somehow captured my imagination. We were studying subatomic particles — you know, those electrons and protons and such — and we came upon a principle known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
This fella, Heisenberg, thought about what it would be like to “look” at an electron. Remember that to “look” at anything takes light. It takes a particle (or wave) of light bouncing off of an object and reaching your eyes in order to make out what that object’s shape, color, and texture is, as well as its movement and distance from you.
So these electrons, these very small particles that orbit the nucleus of an atom, are tricky creatures. The thing about these little guys is that to look at them you have to bounce light off of them, right? For most objects in our everyday world, a few light packets (what scientists call “photons”) bouncing off of it has very little effect on the object itself. But for electrons, which are so small and of such low mass, bouncing light off of them results in moving them. And so you may be able to “see,” say, how fast the electron was moving, but now you don’t know where it’s at, because you moved it by looking at it. Or, maybe you found out where it was in space, but now you’ve changed how fast it is moving and so you cannot predict where it will be in the next bit of time. In short, you can either know how fast the electron is moving or where it is in space, its position, but you cannot know both at the same time with complete certainty. The Uncertainty Principle.
The implications of the principle are now so widespread even in contemporary culture as to have bent it largely to its relativistic sentiment. Society has latched onto the uncertainty idea and applied it to areas that it doesn’t belong, like ethics (how somebody is supposed to live), epistemology (genuine knowledge or truth), and theology (our understanding of God). We have decided to say that no one can know anything for certain, including the knowledge of God, and that in the end it doesn’t matter how someone lives their life.
But I digress. The most interesting thing about Heisenberg’s idea is that it does so aptly apply to everyday lives, to the way we understand spiritual truth. Which really is to say, the way we understand ourselves and our daily business of living. Or not living, in many cases. The thing is, we have things that we want to say, that we need to say, that must be spoken. There are elements of reality that must have light shone on them. The difficulty happens when we shine the light on them, because suddenly they are not there anymore. Or maybe we are not there anymore. It is difficult to say for certain where someone may be in their spiritual lives, in their walk with God, and even in their place in the world, because once we find that spot, they have moved from it. Their momentum has changed. Or maybe we find out the direction they are headed, but once we discover that we realize that it has shifted ever so slightly because the vision they hold, the gravity that pulls them in to orbit their God, has altered their course once again.
Yet these things must be spoken, these things, as Kushner says, that are just “between the noise and the silence,” things that ultimately cannot ever really be said.
That is why Jesus cannot be spoken of from a distance. He demands we face Him. He demands we hear Him. He demands we eat and drink of His body and blood (Matthew 26:26-28). This is why God demands us to be either in intimate and personal relationship with Him, or not in relationship at all (Luke 11:23).
Kushner continues, “That’s what seekers of truth do. You devotedly, stubbornly, compulsively return again and again to that line between noise and silence, hoping against hope to find a way to say what finally cannot be said. If it could be said straight out, you wouldn’t have to try and find a better way to say it. If you couldn’t speak it at all, then you’d have to resort to such nonverbal modes of communication as art, or dance, or music. The thing about spiritual truth is that it wants to be spoken. It is too important, too transforming to be left alone in silence…. the problem is that once you speak or show the words to someone else, then both of you are different…To say what is just at the the outermost edge of what can be spoken is to deal with words that are so primary and dazzling that they are infinitely personal and intimate.” – Kushner
With all that is said and all that ever will (and must) be said regarding our lives, in the end there will be only one thing left to hear, and when spoken, that one thing — intimate and personal beyond all imagining — will ring out for the rest of eternity. That is one thing we can be certain of.
Love this!