Eternity and Infinity, Part 2

Eternity and Infinity, Part 2

 “We say God is eternal, but we don’t know what that means.”[1] James Finley

Last week I proposed that eternity runs perpendicular to the three-dimensional, space-time continuum that we experience in our lives. As such, eternity is not a continuation of time as we know it, but a depth of experience in the moment. There is another, more tangible image I find helpful in wrestling with the unquantifiable concepts of infinity and eternity. That image is of the water cycle. About eight miles north of my home is the Kansas river, also known as the Kaw. It runs from west to east, being fed by the Smoky Hill, Big Blue, and Delaware rivers, along with countless creeks and tributaries carrying snow-melt, rain, and other run-off water into the Kaw. The Kaw flows east to Kansas City where it merges with the Missouri river. From there, it continues east and empties into the Mississippi. The Mississippi runs south and empties into the Gulf of Mexico just beyond New Orleans. At every point along this apparently one-way flow of water, evaporation occurs, invisibly carrying water vapor from plants, streams, rivers, and oceans into the atmosphere where it falls back to earth as snow and rain. Snow-melt and rain, fed by evaporation, refill the rivers, creeks, and tributaries, and so the cycle continues.

The water cycle is eternal in the sense that it extends beyond time since it has no discernable beginning or end, either in time or space. Age is a meaningless concept in eternity. The question of whether the water cycle begins with the oceans or evaporation or any point in between is unanswerable and irrelevant because it flows through all points at all times and can be traced from anywhere along its path. Water flows infinitely because there is no point at which it does not exist.

To take the analogy a step further, no single water droplet can be said to be perfect in or of itself, nor can it be permanent or unchanging in any of its states of existence. As an inseparable part of the eternal water cycle, however, each droplet exists within and participates in perfection, permanence, and eternal life. Once a water droplet is identified with the water cycle, it too becomes eternal. Of course, we cannot actually observe the water cycle in its totality except in an imaginal way. We can only experience aspects of the water cycle at various points of its being. We can stand in the rain or swim in a river. We can surf on the ocean or fish in a pond. We can explore the worn rocks on the bed of a stream or relax in a warm bath. We cannot, however, observe the eternality of the water cycle because our human perspective is limited to experiencing parts of the whole. Its eternal nature appears to us as states or stages unfolding in what we consider time. Our inability to perceive the totality of the eternal nature of the larger life that holds us is exactly the limitation that causes our misunderstandings, conflicts, and suffering.

Just as water, in both its visible (liquid) and invisible (vapor) forms, is required to sustain all living bodies, so spirit is required to animate and enliven the physical matter of all living bodies. Just because we cannot observe the evaporation of water as vapor falling upward into the atmosphere does not mean that this invisible process does not occur. Likewise, just because we cannot observe or measure the presence of spiritual forces flowing through matter does not mean they do not exist. We know there are invisible forces and processes at work, not from direct observation but because of the impact of those forces on what we can observe. We know water evaporates into the sky because the rain and snow that fall from it cannot be seeded in any other way. We know an invisible something works within living bodies because we observe the differences between animate and inanimate matter. And we know our individual lives exist within a larger, eternal life because life was eternally present before our earthly lives and will continue after them. We believe in unseen phenomena because of their impact on the seen. We learn the nature of the unknown by its effects on the known. Eternity and infinity are unseen and unknowable concepts, but whatever they represent exists beyond our ability to observe.

The late Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, is rumored to have said: “Once the wave realizes she is the ocean, her fear dissipates.” Eternity and infinity seem unreal to us because our perception of who and whose we are is too small. Once we consciously recognize ourselves as individual but integrated expressions of an infinite eternal life, our insecurities, sense of separation, and fear of annihilation at death dissipate.

This is the 28^thin a series of Life Notes on Time, and Eternity. The opinions expressed are mine. To engage with me or to explore contemplative spiritual direction, contact me at ghildenbrand@sunflower.com.

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[1] James Finley, Contemplative Dimensions of Spiritual Direction and Companionship, online lecture for Spiritual Directors International, www.sdi.org, broadcast on October 24, 2023.