π r2 Redux

Many of you have commented on my sermon of this past Sunday in which I trod where most English majors fear to tread (at least this English major)… in the realm of Math. I suggested that the circle might be a metaphor for the kingdom of God; for life itself. The enigmatic circle has long been an archetype in human consciousness. It was the shape of ancient liturgical dance; of mandalas; calendars; sundials; it is the shape of the heavens above: planets and their orbits, stars, galaxies… a symbol of wholeness, eternity, completeness; a circle will capture immediately the gaze of a newborn child; our very DNA lives and replicates according to the physics of a circle; so too, the creative process; so too, according to Yeats, the poet, does history.

π (Pi) is the most famous constant in Math… the secret of the circle. If one multiplies the square of a radius of a circle by Pi then one may ascertain the area of the circle no matter how big or how small. Pi is the ratio of the circle’s circumference to its radius… every circle is governed by this ratio. But the ratio is anything but constant. The shorthand for Pi, as you students of geometry know, is 3.14… so, if a circle’s radius is ten feet, then its area would be 314 feet (10 squared times 3.14). A law of mathematics… but the ratio of Pi is unresolved. It can be carried out to an infinite number of decimal places… and there is no pattern… the ratio is utterly random, always new. So if one wished to explore further the same circle with Pi carried out more decimal places, then the circle would grow. The same circle with a radius of ten feet times 3.14159 has an area of  314.159 feet… and then to look with more precision, the radius squared times 3.14159265 is 314.159265 feet… and so on ad infinitum. At each new look at the circle it grows; it is still uncomplete, though everything about it smacks of completeness. It still is process…. The circle a consummate symbol of process… the universe uncompleted, still in its becoming…. God, Godself, still uncompleted, still becoming, like the universe God inhabits.

The kingdom of God is like a circle… Our lives are like a circle… still becoming, still being defined… defined in an exquisite randomness… If God has a plan for us then it is that we live in a world of infinite possibility… That is not to say that life has no discernible meaning. Life may unfold in random improbability, but it unfolds to a mysterious rhythm, a rhythm like that of a dance…It is a rhythm spoken of by the great sages of the human drama… a rhythm that is characterized by kindness and justice and compassion and gratitude and sacrifice… Love in short… It is for us who live in the circle of God’s life to carry out that life to an infinite number of decimal points, so that the circle expands and grows in goodness. In that regard, the life of faith has everything to do with history in its random unfolding, its exponential becoming.

We therefore must engage with the issues of human decency in our world. The circle of Love demands it. Issues of liberation and dignity, of peace and justice, of equality… all on the forefront in our day and age, like every day and age, matter exponentially. How we embrace these issues has everything to do with the integrity of the circle as it expands towards eternity. The circle may obey a random law, a constant of randomness… but the rhythm must be beautiful and true, like a dance, so that the circle may forever be unbroken, yet ever new.