You, O Lover, Unlocatable
O Lover,
You, O Lover, are no more delimited or measured by space than You are by time. Neither, nor any other finite category, circumscribes You. I have been pondering the category of space, particularly as used in regard to transcendence and immanence, as attempts to “locate” you in some sense. Are you here, entangled in, with, and under the creation, or are You removed, distanced, and/or otherwise “othered” from us in some sense?
There it is again: the insidious dualism setting this or that off over against—differentiated, distinguished, objectified, categorized—You. But what if You are no such “thing,” but rather “No-thing,” in the parlance of Eckhart? What if You are the “implicit” Abyss or Depth of being itself rather than yet another being, however grand, and thus neither “now” nor “then,” “within” nor “without,” “here” nor “there”? In other words, unlocatable? These questions—all involving the chronic propensity of us finites to “locate” You, to figure You out—are far more than mere abstractions to me; they are at the core of my longing to open myself to You as fully and as unmediatedly as is possible.
Granted, in the Christ You have come to us in our enfleshed lingua franca (Jn 1:14) allowing us to access You aurally, visually, and tactilely (I Jn 1:1). For this inimitable gift and all of its incarnational derivatives I thank you more than I could express. But we of the fault repeatedly succumb to viewing them as ends rather than means pointing toward You. We often settle into comfort zones, attachment, and, finally, idolatry. There is a massive paradox here: we can and do absolutize the very aspects of Your Self-concretizing (sense, reason, images, imaginings and systems), and in so doing view them as destinations rather than windows. Thus I have come to thirst for You bare naked, unmediated, unlocatable, despite being both unequipped for, and mortally endangered by, that possibility. Space, whether “within” or “without,” “here” or “there,” “immanent” or “transcendent,” defines us beings, not You, Grunt (“Ground”) of all that is.
So where does this yen for aspatiality lead? I experience it as part of a larger need to purge from my life of prayer a focus on aspects which, while periodically useful albeit mostly in earlier stages, now sometimes undermine the naked longing for You alone (Tu Sólus). One example of such compromise is my tendency to reassure myself by making speeches to You. Another is focusing on petition with its bartering and quid pro quo temptations. Yet another is a gratitude primarily indexed to the well-being of either my external context or my interior state of mind. A fourth might be allowing my feelings/emotions, whether occasioning euphoria or lamentation, to be the litmus test of Your presence. Finally, I am not infrequently distracted by words, thoughts, theologies, images, or imaginings from simply and silently resting in Your embrace (“adoration”). This list evidences that one of the chief obstacles to incremental sharing in Your Divine Life is religiosity.
Of all of these efforts to “locate” You, purge me, O Lover! Forgive me if I am greedy, but I desire to be drawn to the point where I can cry out with a measure of integrity: “Whatever transpires, You are enough!” I want to be brought to the place where, to paraphrase Teresa de Jesus, Your trustworthiness alone suffices.
