Just a Closer Walk with Me
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Just a closer walk with Thee
Grant it, Jesus, is my plea
Daily walking close to Thee
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be
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— From “Just a Closer Walk
with Thee” (Traditional)
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Although I can’t say I find “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” to be a hymn I like very much, it is still kind of an earworm — one of those those tunes you can’t get out of your head once it becomes lodged there. As it happens, the songwriter Kenneth Morris also found it to be an earworm when he first heard the hymn sung by a porter on a railway platform while traveling between Kansas City and Chicago. Morris paid little attention at the time but found he couldn’t get the words and melody out of his head after he had boarded his train and was under way. So he got off the train at the next stop and caught a train back to the previous station, where he found the porter. He persuaded him to sing the song again and wrote down the words and music. Morris subsequently determined the hymn had never been published and did so in 1940. “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” has since become a gospel standard, recorded by such luminaries as Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley and Willie Nelson, among many others.
“Just a Closer Walk with Thee” has been linked to a verse from the Epistle of James: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you,” as well as to a verse from one of St. Paul’s epistles: “We walk by faith, not by sight.” And while the song’s sentiments might be comforting to those experiencing difficulties in life, the lyrics are mostly sentimental twaddle. Here, for example, is the third verse:
When my feeble life is o'er
Time for me will be no more
Guide me gently, safely o'er
To Thy kingdom's shore, to Thy shore
Whose life wouldn’t be enfeebled if you sat around all day singing syrupy hymns like that?
Those who wish to be closer to God should be careful what they wish for. We might hope to wind up dancing cheek to cheek with God, but that’s not how it works. The 14th-century Flemish mystic John van Ruusbroec put it this way: “To comprehend and understand God as he is in himself, above and beyond all likenesses, is to be God with God, without intermediary or any element of otherness which could constitute an obstacle or impediment.” You might think this means it is necessary to have a direct relationship with God, without any intermediaries; in other words, it’s just you and God, dancing cheek to cheek. But no, Ruusbroec wasn’t talking about a relationship at all, which requires there to be two parties, an “I and Thou,” to borrow terminology from the the philosopher Martin Buber. As long as there is any element of otherness, Ruusbroec said, there can be no comprehension of God as he is in himself. You have “to be God with God.” By process of elimination, this means there can be no more you — or rather, no more you as a being apart from God.
Spiritual adepts aren’t kidding when they talk about the “annihilation” of self. The obstacle or impediment that Ruusbroec was talking about isn’t something that comes between you and God. The obstacle or impediment is you, and that would apply especially to the “you” that yearns for a close relationship with God. The difficulty comes in trying to annihilate the self, since this requires an act of will, which merely perpetuates the illusion that you have a will apart from the will of God. In the end, there is only one will. “Draw near to God,” James wrote, “and he will draw near to you.” The yearning for God is not entirely without effect, since it draws you near. But then you have a sense that God is drawing near to you, but only in the moment of annihilation before there is only God with God.
James 4:8
2 Corinthians 5:7
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