Love’s Immensity, Scott Cairns. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640605886) 2020 (first published in 2007).

Summary: Reflections and prayers of mystics from St. Paul to Julian of Norwich translated and rendered in verse.

At a student leadership conference many years ago, one of our speakers made the distinction between knowing about God and knowing God. Yet I found as I went on in the Christian life that we were not always at ease with the latter. There was a great fear of subjectivity and “mysticism” was looked at askance. We wanted to “rightly handle” scripture, be “sound” in doctrine.

Yet, rather than choose one pole of this tension, I discovered that living in it was the better place to be. Amid reading great theology, I would find myself caught up in wonder, awe, and love. In both worship and witness, I found myself suddenly in the grip of fresh insight into the truth, the rightness of Christian belief. It was a bringing together of mind and heart in a knowing, passionate, and at times, beyond knowing experience of the love and greatness of God.

It was this that poet Scott Cairns discovered as he meditated upon, translated, and set in verse the writings and prayers of mystics from St. Paul to Julian of Norwich. In particular, he writes of noetic prayer. He found the idea of nous untranslatable. The best he could come up with is “the intellective aptitude of the heart.” However, Cairns does not spend much time on this, preferring to show through our encounter with these mystics, inviting us to join them. In Prologue, by the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, he asks us “to read slowly and thoroughly, tasting each word’s trouble.” And such an approach is wise in reading this profound collection.

Firstly, in so many of the works, the paradox of knowing the unknown is evident. An example is Nicholas of Cusa’s Within the Cloud. He writes:

"...For there, beyond all
reason, and above every bold ascent
--even there, where I glimpse that
with every intellect judges to be
most distant from truth, there 
You bide, my God, who remain
our absolute necessity."

To encounter God in this way, according to Meister Eckhart in The Prayer of a Heart Detached is to be both detached and one with God. One becomes detached from asking and wanting. Rather prayer is simply dwelling in the peace and uniformity with God.

Yet the encounter with God is not passionless, devoid of feeling. In The Depth of His Touch, Saint Claire of Assisi speaks of loving and touching God. God is one who excels in power, generosity, beauty, tender love, and gracious courtesy. It is love that catches her in an embrace, lays precious stones upon her breast and pearls upon her ears. The language is romantic, nearly erotic, and yet she speaks of chastity, purity, virginity. Ultimately, one senses that such a holy love is beyond eros.

Similarly, Saint John of the Cross’s famous Dark Night reads as if it were a lover’s tryst. First, he steals away unobserved by a household at rest. Then, unseeing in the darkness, “heartlight” guides him. The Beloved’s embrace transforms him. Finally, he swoon’s upon the Beloved’s breast, releasing all his burdens.” We find here an intimacy greater than any sexual union.

Origen, in All in All, indeed, speaks of consummation. In this case, it is the promised restoration of all things, in which we are caught up in the “All in All.” Finally, Saint Basil the Great, in Illumination reminds us that this is only possible through the Spirit. Only by the Spirit is the invisible manifest, the inexpressible beauty glimpsed.

But Cairns offers us so much more. In all, he includes thirty-seven saints. The translations rendered in verse enable us to meditate phrase by phrase. This is love poetry on a whole different level. I will treasure it!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

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