Higher Than My Thoughts

Reaching Toward the Unreachable

— AUDIO ESSAY —

The idea for Higher Than My Thoughts began at Mass on Sunday, September 20, 2026. I had heard the passage from Isaiah many times before, but that morning a few familiar words caught my imagination:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

As high as the heavens are above the earth,

so high are my ways above your ways

and my thoughts above your thoughts.

     There is extraordinary poetry in those words. Isaiah gives the imagination somewhere to go. Look up. Consider the heavens. Try to imagine their height, their distance, their immensity. Then consider what that comparison suggests about the distance between our understanding and God’s. For the people who first heard these words, a night filled with stars was already a source of wonder. They could see the lights, but they had little way of knowing what they were or how far away they might be. Thousands of years later, we stand beneath those stars knowing things they could scarcely have imagined. That was what struck me as I listened: everything we have discovered gives us more to consider when we hear Isaiah’s words.

The Heavens Keep Getting Larger

We now know that those small points of light are suns. Our Sun is one star among billions in our galaxy, and our galaxy is one among an enormous multitude. Some of the light reaching us has traveled through space for billions of years. We can look outward so far that we are also looking backward in time. I can follow some of the explanation, but I cannot honestly say that I comprehend the reality. A billion years is easy enough to write down. Trying to imagine it is another matter, even before adding a distance that takes light a billion years to cross. We have learned to measure things that we can barely hold in the mind, and each generation discovers more than the previous one knew was there to discover.

Isaiah’s poetry has survived all of this remarkably well. His comparison does not depend on a particular model of the universe. As our understanding of the heavens expands, our imagination has farther to travel. I would not suggest that Isaiah was secretly describing galaxies or anticipating modern cosmology. What interested me was what happens when we bring our present knowledge to the image he gave us. The heavens are more immense than his first listeners could have known, yet even that immensity only begins to suggest the difference between our understanding and God’s. That became the beginning of the song. One of the lines that emerged was:

Light far older than our oldest words

Is falling on us still.

     I love the meeting of those two images: ancient light and ancient words. The light has traveled across an unimaginable distance. Isaiah’s words have traveled through centuries of human history, carried by people who preserved them, prayed with them, and tried to understand them. Both reach us here, during the small interval of time that is our own life. I find something moving in that. We receive light that began its journey long before there were people to see it, and words that people have been listening to for centuries. Now it is our turn to look and listen.

The More We See

As I worked on the song, I kept returning to a curious feature of human knowledge. Learning more often makes things easier to understand. We discover causes, solve problems, and develop explanations that allow us to accomplish extraordinary things. But discoveries also reveal how much was missing from our earlier understanding. We find an answer and, with it, a question we did not previously know enough to ask. That thought became one of the central lines in the song:

The more we see,

The more we know

How little we can know.

     I do not hear those words as a reason to stop exploring. I want to keep looking and asking, using whatever gifts of reason and imagination I have. Science, philosophy, theology, art, and experience all contribute to our understanding. Yet the more we learn, the more reason we have to be humble about what we think we know. It is easy to recognize the limitations of an earlier age. Recognizing our own takes more effort. I can understand why people once found their explanations convincing; I need to remember that some of mine may also prove incomplete. If creation keeps exceeding what we expect of it, I have good reason to approach its Creator with humility.

An Attempt Destined to Fail

There is an unavoidable difficulty in trying to imagine the thoughts of God. Any attempt to encompass His understanding within a human mind must ultimately fail. We experience reality from one place, during one brief lifetime, through limited senses and with incomplete knowledge. We see events without knowing all their causes or where they will lead. We judge a moment while we are still inside it. Even understanding another human being can be difficult, though we share so much. I cannot arrive at God’s perspective simply by adding more information to my own.

     Failure is inevitable, but reaching matters. I believe there can be spiritual value in stretching the mind toward something it knows it cannot contain. We contemplate infinity, eternity, consciousness, and love without fully understanding them, yet the effort can affect us deeply. Reaching toward the thoughts of God may do something similar. I cannot see as God sees, but I can try to see beyond myself. I can question my assumption that what I presently understand is enough to judge a situation, or that my immediate concerns deserve all the attention I give them. I can also consider whether my purposes are becoming more aligned with what I understand of His. None of that requires me to comprehend God. It does require a willingness to reconsider myself.

And Then Something Comes Down

Then Isaiah changes direction. After speaking of God’s thoughts and ways above our own, he describes rain and snow coming down from heaven, watering the earth and enabling it to bring forth life. God compares this with His word going forth and accomplishing its purpose. That movement changed the song for me. I had been looking upward, following light into the darkness and trying to imagine distances beyond my comprehension. Now the passage brought me back to something familiar:

But rain comes down.

And snow comes down.

Awakening every seed.

     Rain and snow reach the earth, enter the soil, and sustain life. This is something we can see happen. It belongs to our ordinary experience. After asking us to consider the height of the heavens, Isaiah brings our attention to the ground beneath our feet and to what grows there. God’s word comes to us and accomplishes something here. I had been absorbed in how far beyond us God must be. This part of the passage reminded me that being beyond my understanding does not mean being beyond my reach—or, perhaps more accurately, that I am beyond His.

Our Thoughts Rise

For me, as a Christian, that movement also carries an echo of the Incarnation. The Word becomes flesh. God enters human life. I cannot fully comprehend that mystery, but it is central to my faith: the God whose thoughts are beyond mine has come near enough to be encountered in a human life. That gave the song a tenderness that the vastness of space alone could not provide. As we reach toward God, there is also something to receive from Him.

     By the end, I was considering what this reaching might ask of me. Wonder can occupy the imagination for a while and then leave daily life much as it was. I hope for more than that, though I cannot assume that seeing farther will automatically help me live better. I still have to be willing to learn, to reconsider, and to give attention to concerns beyond my own. Seeking God’s will begins with the understanding I have, however limited, and with what I am willing to bring before Him. The closing lines grew out of that thought:

And yet Your Word comes down…

And my thoughts rise to seek Your will.

     I will never encompass God’s thoughts. I cannot even fully imagine the heavens Isaiah asks me to consider. But I can look up, let what I have learned stretch my imagination, and keep reaching. Then I have to return my attention to the life in front of me. There is still something here for me to understand, and something here for me to do.