Where Can I Flee?

Around the circle at the jail recently we were talking about the God who meets us at our lowest point. It’s not particularly difficult for the guys to think about their lowest point. It’s not exactly a remote hypothetical for many for them. They’re living it. They’re at the bottom. They know precisely what most people think of them—they often think it of themselves. They are well aware of their weaknesses and proclivities, their addictions and destructive habits, their character flaws and worst impulses. They know who they are, they know where they are, and they know why.

We read the famous words from Psalm 139.

 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

I’ve often remarked that the bible sounds different in jail than in church (or anywhere else, really). I’m accustomed to reading verses 11-12 as a bit of poetic theology, a dispassionate assurance that God blazes brightly in a kind of metaphorical darkness. But these guys know what it is to hope that darkness will hide them. Or to make literal beds in literal depths. Or to long for the night because the light of day exposes too much. To hear that darkness is as light to the God of heaven and earth, that we cannot go where God is not is… terrifying, liberating, infuriating and hopeful. Sometimes all at the same time.

“Even in your lowest lows, God is not absent,” I tell them. “God does not give up on anything he has made. You don’t have to pile up enough good things to make God like you or care about you. He already does. He proved this once and for all on the cross. The cross is God going to the bottom to meet us there.”

One guy leans forward and begins to speak, quietly, haltingly, tentatively. “This is the bottom for me. But I’m thankful that I came here. I’ve started reading the bible again. I’ve reconnected with a faith that I’ve spent a few decades trying to talk myself out of. I feel like I’m getting myself back. And I’m grateful for that.”

I’m always struck by how a few honest, personal words from the heart, from the bottom, from the darkness can change the tenor of an entire conversation. All the crude banter and joking dry up. A little crack is opened up, giving people permission to look honestly at their own lives, to speak from their own pain, to ask for forgiveness, to pray. I am grateful for these moments. I try to mostly not get in the way during these moments, to leave room for the Spirit to do what the Spirit does. And I say “thank you” a lot. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for your example. Thank you for helping us to see.

We pray at the end as we always do. We pray for kids and lovers, fathers and mothers, for bail hearings and court dates, for those on the street with nowhere to sleep and not enough to eat, for those battling addictions and those battling each other, for all the ways in which we dredge the depths and imagine the darkness will hide us. We say, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” We give thanks for a mercy that follows us the bottom and holds us fast.

After I buzzed the guards, I noticed that the guy who shared had wandered over to the piano. I’m not supposed to let the guys touch the instruments, but hey, grace trumps law, right? “Do you play?” I ask him. “A bit, when I was a kid,” he said somewhat sheepishly. And then he just started playing. After a while I recognized the tune. “The Rose,” by Bette Midler. Huh. Didn’t see that coming. I say that a lot in the jail.

When I got back to my office, I googled the lyrics. I’m sure it’s meant to be sappy romance song, but I couldn’t resist interpreting in light of Psalm 139 and the God whose love finds us in our darkest nights and on our longest roads.

Some say love, it is a hunger
An endless aching need…

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong

Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun’s love
In the spring becomes the rose