Again, Where is God?

     Sometimes I think of God as I do of the Earth. It's so big, I hardly know it's there. It's round, it's moving fast, but it's too big to see. Like Yankee Doodle, I can't see the city because there are so many houses.
     God is everywhere. Why do I beg Him to be present? When I'm scared, or depressed, or stressed, why is my prayer that He would be near me? I know that there is no place we can hide from Him. I give myself too much credit if I think I can sin enough to make Him leave, while His grace still continues for those on Earth. Across the sea, below the Earth, in the darkest part of a city, He is there. I don't always feel Him. It seems then that He has stepped away, waiting patiently until I cleaned the vomit from my chin and wash my hands with bleach. As if my sin could push Him around, tuck Him away until I straighten up.
     Not so, I am humiliated to realize. God is always there, so where does He go when we can't feel Him?
Stand in the middle of a field, under a tree. Stand in a garden, surrounded by waving corn. Stand on a road in North Dakota, with yellow growth spreading out as far as the Earth goes. Close your eyes.
     Everything is still there.
Your eyes stare at blackness, maybe with a red tint from the sunlight. Still air, and dirt beneath your shoes. Easy enough to say the tree is gone, the plants are gone, the yellow is gone, God is gone. But that is not truth. That is not supported by any fact. No evidence, only the feeling of a moment of blindness.
     When I want the glory of God in my church, my home, I'm going to ask for it differently. God's grace is so great that in the darkest of places, He is still there, watching us with pained love in His eyes. When our eyes are stretched open, and we see Him, we worship Him with all that we are, He is there. When our eyes are shut, or squinting open halfway, fluttering between vision and blindness, He is still there, waiting for us to look and see His beauty.
     It's comforting and solemnizing. God isn't one to know everything as He watches from a great tower of Heaven. He knows everything because He is there, inside the knowledge, watching it all unfold. I feel nothing but faith, at times, but I have that trust that He is all around me. I want those moments of blindness to be short, and I want to open my eyes even while my hands are still dirty. I can never get clean enough anyway. I shouldn't waste time waiting until I feel clean and then begging Him to come. Not when He's waiting there with His hands held out for me to take.
     Annie Dillard had a friend that was blind, and was healed of her blindness. The friend could not see in three dimensions. She had no concept of depth or distance. She saw things as patches of color, splotched across her eyes. Annie Dillard tried to imitate her friend, and managed to see the world as colors, not things, for just a moment. I've tried it many times, and I can only do it halfway.
     Envisioning God all around me, even as I sin and close my eyes to Him, brought Annie to my mind. God's omnipresence is difficult to comprehend. We have no examples of what it is like. I wonder if I look at the world as patches of color, with no depth or distance, nothing beyond what I've been told is there. I want to take the cap off everything, and let it spill over into the sky. God doesn't end. He is everywhere. I only have to open my eyes and see what He wants to show me.
     What a terrifying God. "Fearful in praises, doing wonders." The song of Moses, Exodus 15, is fascinating.     I beg Him to open my eyes to His presence, already here.