Ralph P

“He asked Adam, “Where are you?” He did not mean “I can’t see you.” God sees everything. What did he mean? He meant “Now that you have removed yourself from my presence, now that you have left the relationship of faith and trust and obedience, now that you have declared your independence from me and left your home and your innocence and the garden where everything was a joy for you and where you knew where you were because I was your center—now that all that is gone, where are you? You were my planet, staying in orbit around me as your sun. Now you have left my solar system, and you are out in the darkness and coldness and emptiness of outer space; you have lost your absolute point of reference, so you no longer know where you are. You are homeless, because I am your true home, and you have left me. You are lost. There is no other hope for you, no other sun, no other God. I am not one God among many; I am the one and only one. You have lost the one source of all light and truth and meaning, the one source of all peace and happiness and joy and hope. Where are you now? You have walked through the door from a place full of light into a place full of darkness. You have walked through the door whose entrance sign says, ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here.’ You have exchanged heaven for hell. And if I left you alone and did nothing to bring you back, you would have absolutely no hope, forever. For I am not one of many hopes, one of your many options for truth and goodness and joy. There is no other. It’s God or nothingness. And you have chosen nothingness. That’s where you are now: you are in nothingness, you are nowhere.”
― Peter Kreeft, Food for the Soul: Reflections on the Mass Readings (Cycle B)