“If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.”
THE MOST REMOTE PLACE
For just a moment, think about the most remote place you have ever been. Think about a place unique and desolate, rarely traversed, void of company; not marked by highway sign or Tripadvisor. I’m talking about the kind of place you won’t find a bed & breakfast, a convenience store, a gas station, or a fellow trekker. Heck, the kind of place you know even Rick Steves hasn’t been . . . .
Hmmm . . . did you think, “Point Nemo” by any chance?
Recently, I read an article entitled, “The Most Remote Place in the World” by Cullen Murphy, editor at large for The Atlantic. Murphy wrote about Point Nemo.
Point Nemo is located in the South Pacific, and no, it is not a deserted Island paradise. It is just a watery speck on the map, a GPS coordinate, a longitude and latitude mark that is 1,670.4 miles in any direction from any point of land, and to provide scale, that’s the distance from Manhattan to Sante Fe!
Why is it called Point Nemo? Murphy writes:
The reference is not to the Disney fish, but to the captain in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In Latin, Nemo means “no one,” which is appropriate because there is nothing and no one here.
He goes on to add that “It is the anti-Everest: It beckons because nothing is there.” It is so desolate that no country has standing naval presence at Point Nemo. I guess that is understandable; it’s not exactly “strategic.” And . . . Point Nemo has the worst weather in the world. Winds are cold and brutal, says Murphy, “Waves reach 60 or 70 feet. Sailors rarely ever pass that way. If they do, they “may have to ride out these conditions slammed and jammed, for five days, ten days…”
On the R-A-R-E chance you may find yourself on a discovery vessel crossing the Sahara of the Sea, don’t be surprised if your captain signals a WOW alert to friends back home (“waiting on weather”), because chances are it will be too rough to work. And if Captain Courageous is not sending out a WOW he (or she) might be receiving a RAW alert (RUN AWAY from WEATHER) because, “Yes,” it does get that bad. And if you get a RAW, you better scoot!
Simon Fisher was the navigator for the Mālama, a racing sailboat on an around-the-world race. He said this about Point Nemo:
There’s something very special about knowing you’re someplace where everybody isn’t.
Murphy adds,
We all know the feeling. Rain swept moon moors, trackless deserts, unpeopled islands. For me, such places are hard to resist. Metaphorically, of course, remoteness can be found anywhere – cities, books, relationships. But physical remoteness is a category of its own it is enhancer: it can make the glorious better and the terrible worse.
Of course, those feelings delight the senses when we want remote, when we want solitude. But how about those moments in our lives where we have felt remote — from a loved one, from health, from meaning, from purpose, from financial stability, or even from God — and we long to be connected.
There is good news for those bobbing up and down in the unfriendly waters of Point Nemo. Contrary to Mr. Murphy’s assertion that there is “nothing and no one” there, Someone is! At every Point Nemo in life (literally or figuratively) our God is present. David’s song encourages us with this truth:
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 EVEN THERE your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
Even there . . . even in the desolate remoteness of our thoughts, our grieving, our loneliness, our illnesses, our defeats and our failures . . . God is there.
Praise God, your Point Nemo is never too far for him. Even if you “take the wings of the morning,” sings David, “and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,” you can rest confident he is there and that no “Point Nemo” of life separates you from the love of Christ.
“For I am convinced,” Paul writes, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39
Yes, God hangs out at the farthest limits of the sea; even at every desolate place on the planet, even at every Point Nemo of your life. And because he is, you are not adrift and alone.
The Psalmist does not stop with that truth, he applies it. Because God is present, David praises him (v14). And because God is present David asks for his help (v19). And because God is present David asks God to take a good long look at his own soul to ensure, in part, that he is not simply using God to his own ends (v23).
Do you find yourself at Point Nemo today? God hasn’t left you. He’s got you. Lean on him.
__________
Notes:
The reference is not to the Disney fish . . . from Cullen Murphy in “The Most Remote Place in the World,” The Atlantic (November 2024, 30).
“It is the anti-Everest: It beckons because nothing is there.” “The Most Remote Place in the World,” 31.
“Waves reach 60 or 70 feet . . . from “The Most Remote Place …”
“There’s something very special about knowing you’re someplace where everybody isn’t from “The Most Remote Place . . .” p. 30.
“We all know the feeling. Rain swept moon moors . . .” from Ibid, p. 30