Dispelling The Illusion of Distance: A Meditation

How do we measure distance? Is it the miles between cities, the silence between words? Is it to be measured in quality and depth of experience the way we measure intimacy and closeness? Is distance the length of time it takes us to get from one place to another? Or is distance the cold silence between two bodies pushed together by lust, by blood, by circumstance, or by subway trains and airport trams? It would seem distance is no respecter of place nor proximity. Distance is no subordinate of time or space.


Distance is what reminds us of our own loneliness, sometimes even in the presence of others with mouths gaping open and words spewing forth as geysers yet we don't hear anything they are saying. Distance is the measure of our individual person. It is the orbit of our singular disposition.


There are some friends we have which no matter how much time or separation occurs, we see the immediacy of one another upon meeting. We pick up right where we left off as if the space between were only the blinking of our eyes. Or as if the soul of the person is somehow unchanged and unmoved despite the passing of days and the drooping eyelids of our years.

What is this eternal quality of our nearness resonating in friendship and everlasting beauty?

It is a mystery which bypasses the arithmetic of repetition.

Distance is the broken space which fumbles for words as we seek to construct some common ground. Distance is what reaches for weather, for current affairs and politics to bridge the space between strangers.

Distance is an uninhabited, uncreated space which we sometimes seek to fill with anything in order to avoid the emptiness.

But sometimes, we may find solace in distance - reprieve from constant building, building with words, building with shared bodies of knowledge, building with useless information and trivialities which are sure to topple as the moment passes.

Sometimes distance is a barren and lonely absence where no measure of proximity can pull you close.

I remember driving through the desert of southern Colorado. The towering, snow-capped Rockies rested dead in front of me. They appeared as if I would run up their hills at any given moment. And yet, no matter how far to the floor I pushed the gas pedal, those mountains never budged. They stayed fixed there as if I were driving on a treadmill.
Ever getting Nowhere.

It was as if their presence was engulfed in an unapproachable distance. I went on for hours barely noticing a change of shape, only seeing broken, yellow lines on the sun-baked pavement and occasional mile markers assuring me of any forward motion. I didn't trust them to be telling the truth.

It takes faith to move mountains.

Sometimes, it takes mountains to move our faith....



Distance embodies the idea of journeying. Therefore,  distance implies the idea of returning. But is it a distance which calls to us or a distance which repels? Distance holds the idea or possibility of intimacy - once crossed, distance gives us the joy of the embrace. But chasms and abysmal distance leave us in a relational purgatory. They hum and suspend but don't resolve.

Distance then can give us hope of what is to come but distance requires our participation, our effort, whether to step onto the plane or to build bridges with our words. Distance only offers its gift once we have made the choice to traverse its course.

Sometimes the distance is too great. The effort is too draining, too demanding to reconcile. We, then, like Moses only see the land from afar, if we see it at all. We journey as far as our feet can take us toward intimacy, toward body knowing, but our tired efforts stop short of entering in the engagement.

Our imaginations are left to develop the geography of the unknown. We must construct only intimations of possible outcomes.

I suppose, in this way, perhaps that is what Hell finally is - a place of perpetual otherness-  a state of perpetual unknowing. Hell is the uncrossable distance which leaves one unknowing and unknown.

Our religious language would seem to agree with this on some level. For we are encouraged to know God, to know one another, to know what He is really like. God doesn't want to leave us unknowing and itching with an incurable curiosity. He offers clues. He urges us on toward knowing Him.

His distance is an inviting one, a welcoming one, if his distance is anything more than imagined.

Perhaps it is only an illusion of distance after all.  And this is what good, healthy and true religious encounter leads us to dispell.

God's distance is no distance at all.

Hell, then is never dispelling the illusion of separation. It is never knowing and never being known. But God is always there, ready to receive us when we return from our distance, broke, brokenhearted and smelling of pigs. He is there, ready to dispell the distance of feeling unloved, the distance of self-preservation and fear of being seen as we are and proved wanting.

God dispels the illusion of distance.

He draws the strings tight and pulls us close, so to speak.

We understand relationships in terms of proximity, of being close to one another - far apart - exiled - grafted in. Intimacy or friendship is enacted around the table and estrangement is a far country.

God always bridges the distance. He invites his enemies to his table, puts the lonely in families and fills our emptiness, not with trivialities but with revelation which speaks

without ever breaking the silence.


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