Kandu Hel Athare

When I was trapped among the mountains and hills,
when I lay sunk at the bottom of the sea,
when I flew high upon the crest of the wind,
there, and here, you were beside me

The tears of pain, streaming down
between my two cheeks, tormented my eyes,
I opened my eyes, blinked awake, and looked,
and my Lord, again, yes, you, again,
you were beside me, you were beside me

Dragged along behind a thousand desires,
weeping, alone, on the road I came and went,
in the darkness, once more longing for comfort,
and my Lord, again, yes, you, again,
you were beside me, you were beside me

This is a hymn about the inescapable nearness of God, and its first verse is a direct echo of the 139th Psalm, in which the poet marvels that there is nowhere he can go beyond God’s presence. The song lists the same extremes, “trapped among the mountains and hills,” “sunk at the bottom of the sea,” “flying high upon the crest of the wind,” and answers each one the same way: “there, and here, you were beside me.” Whether at the heights, the depths, or borne along by the wind, God is already there.

The middle verse turns from the vastness of geography to the closeness of grief. “The tears of pain, streaming down between my two cheeks, tormented my eyes,” and yet when he “opened my eyes, blinked awake, and looked,” the discovery was the same, “my Lord, again, you were beside me.” The refrain, with its repeated “again, yes, you, again,” has the feeling of a truth relearned over and over, each time with fresh surprise and relief.

The final verse is the most honest about the singer’s own wandering. He confesses being “dragged along behind a thousand desires,” “weeping, alone, on the road I came and went,” and again “longing for comfort” in the dark. Even there, in his failures and his loneliness, the answer never changes: “again, you were beside me.” What the listener is left with is the deep, steadying comfort of a presence that cannot be lost, a God who is there on the mountaintop and at the sea’s bottom, in the streaming tears and the thousand wrong turns, always, again, beside us.