I found the quote below in The Saint and the Scholar, Jon M. Sweeney’s short, fascinating new book about how the split between faith and reason got started back in the 12th century. The book is the story of the different approaches to faith and learning followed by Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter Abelard (of Heloise affair fame) and how their conflict has echoed down through the ages.
The quote, from Simone Weil, is a good description of how Robert Lax lived:
“There is no entry into the transcendent until the human faculties–intelligence, will, human love–have come up against a limit, and the human being waits at this threshold, which he can make no move to cross, without turning away and without knowing what he wants, in fixed, unwavering attention.”