55:150

I’m partway through a novel that’s a (very, very) loose retelling of the Moses story. Of course, before we have Israel being delivered we have Moses–delivered through water, then wandering in the desert before finding (or, more appropriately, being given) purpose and action. As part of the writing process, I’ve had to examine themes in the Biblical story–from justice and oppression to ideas (or motifs) like coming through water. And, of course, the idea of fleeing and wandering: Moses flees after killing the Egyptian; Israel wanders in the desert as a result of their disobedience.

We see this idea from the beginning of the Biblical narrative. Cain kills Abel, and is sentence to become “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Hagar is sent away and wanders in the desert; Jacob flees Esau; Elijah flees Ahab; the disciples flee after Jesus is arrested (including a certain naked man running into the night).

In Psalm 55 we see the poet desiring the same thing: “And I say, ‘Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness.’” The poet does not run, but longs for it.

In the beginning of Genesis, we are reminded that–like any good story–the themes of the entire narrative are started here, are held here, especially in seemingly mythic first eleven chapters. Just like Adam is cursed and now struggles to bring new life upon the earth, not simply from the ground but everywhere, so Cain’s curse also has parallels for us. He is to flee, to wander.

In America, we love the open road: we all own cars and have this national idealism that the open road carries possibility, mystique, escape. From my own feelings and from others I’ve talked to: after particularly hard days, we even have fleeting thoughts of: what if I just drove? What if I took my family and we drove into the mountains and didn’t stop until we reached the Pacific? What might happen then?

In college I loved to drive, and would enjoy the four-hour trip home or the fifteen hour drive out to see my brother and sister-in-law in Denver. There was something about the escape and invisibility of it, something about the adventure of it, even though I took highways the entire time. Something.

But, escape is not an American ideal, I don’t believe. We may view escape and wandering in the form of the road and cars, but we see Cain wanders, the psalmist longs to wander and disappear, and from Hagar to Moses to Buddha, we see men and women who have this same longing and need: to reinvent themselves, to flee the evil around them, even within them.

In Psalm 55, the psalmist does not flee. After complaining and lamenting to God, acknowledging his betrayal by a friend, he asserts, “But I will trust in you.” We don’t know if he was expecting miraculous deliverance or merely dogged endurance, but we see he cries to God to make circumstances right. He longs to flee but does not: location does not reinvent us; God reinvents us. This is what happened to Moses, to Israel, to the disciples.

And so may we see through this myth. Wandering alone does not help: we remain who we are; we flee simply to experience something new, to find distraction. This is especially true of the post-Baby Boomer generation: we are on the hunt for what is next, new, novel. But unless we are new, nothing is.