Bob Schwartz

There are two kinds of exploration, two kinds of explorers.

One has a mission, an objective, something specific to find.

One explores to find not an objective, but whatever is discovered.

Both of these share something essential.

When they have arrived somewhere, anywhere, whatever the details, whatever their arrival seems to mean, they can say one thing:

Here I am. Here this is.

It is maybe coincidence that this is one of the shortest and most famous sayings in the Bible, a response when God calls to Abraham, Jacob, Moses and others. Hineni. Here I am.

In these stories, we can assume that God already knows where these people are, and that they know that God knows. Maybe they are saying it as a lesson to us.

Maybe they are teaching, whether authors of the Bible intended it or not, that whatever the story that has gone before or is yet to come, whatever exploration led to the moment and will lead on, there is nothing else but this. No yesterday or tomorrow. Nothing but this.

Hineni. Here I am. Here this is.

© 2025 by Bob Schwartz