“Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved you!  For behold you were within me, and I outside; and I sought you outside….You were with me and I was not with you.  I was kept from you by those things….You called and cried to me and broke open my deafness: and you sent forth your beams and shone upon me and chased away my blindness.  (St. Augustine CONFESSIONS, 10, 27-38)

Echoed down centuries, Francis Thompson in THE HOUND OF HEAVEN:

I fled Him, down the night and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

           Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

           Up vistaed hopes I sped;

            And shot, precipitate,

Adown Titanic glens of chasmed fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after

           But with unhurrying chase,

           And unperturbed pace,

   Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

          They beat-and a Voice beat

          More instant than the Feet-

             “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

Christ, today and always, is not far away.  If we forget him, he does not forget us.  He is the Way, and that road to join him is always open.  We must leave our self-centeredness and enter into the new dimension of his risen and ascended love.