Nowhere to Go

The psalmist asks, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Psalm 139:7), and then puts the question to the test. He goes up into heaven, down into the grave, out to the uttermost parts of the sea, and in every place he names, he finds the presence already there. The psalm is usually read as a statement about God’s reach: a presence so vast that no distance escapes it. It can also be read the other way around. There is nowhere to flee not because God follows, but because there is no distance to cross.

Think about what going somewhere involves. A room is left, a street is crossed, a new city comes into view. Each place is known only as it appears in experience: its light, its sounds, the feel of the ground underfoot. The places change, but the knowing does not stand apart from them. It is the room, wholly, then the street, wholly, then the city. That is why it never has to travel. A traveler crosses distance; the knowing is the distance too, and both ends of it.

This is why the search for God so often feels like a journey and ends as a recognition. Years can be spent moving toward a presence that turns out to have been every step of the way. The journey was not wasted. It was simply never a matter of distance.

Wherever attention goes today, it never leaves what it is looking for. Attention is that knowing, gathered to a point.