Points in a Circle

God is a circle, said Empedocles,

Whose centre is everywhere but whose circumference is nowhere.

Thus unity and diversity cohabit, distance and immediacy, completion and initiation.

I see

Radius in time as well as space;

Existence that forever is, forever will be, forever was.

God unbounded, omnipresent in time and space.

I see

A spiral galaxy;

Not a circle but points in a force field, slowly dissipating in a mist.

God dissolving in time and space.

I see

Wave on rolling wave, eddies in a pond,

Wheel after fervid wheel, moving in all directions,

A ceaseless energy.

I see

A centre constantly changing,

In ever-variable relation to itself and each other point,

A great vibration.

I see

Taijitu, nested circles:

One circle, one whole, but circles within,

Interlocked and interacting manifestations of the whole.

I see

A world of angles, for utility is angular.

Utility and vanity of buildings, authorities, policy frameworks, laws,

Divorced from nature, from circle, from God.

I see

Lives lived in the compass of a pendulum, but not the full circle,

Lives that are or seem so bounded.

In God, in the circle, there is hope.

I see and yet I do not see, I cannot see.

But I remember the Tao:

Model the Godness in its entirety, the goodness at all points;

Honour the yang and yin, and all between; give and graciously receive;

Then the circle will be complete.