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Jonah 1:3 · World English Bible

Jonah 1:3 Meaning But Jonah Rose Up to Flee

But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Yahweh.

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What does Jonah 1:3 mean?

There is a movement in you forever trying to be somewhere other than here. It calls the present moment unacceptable and sets off toward some imagined elsewhere, where life will finally be as it should.

From the Ego v. Being reading below.

Jonah 1:3 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

EGO & BEING

Ego v. Being

There is a movement in you forever trying to be somewhere other than here. It calls the present moment unacceptable and sets off toward some imagined elsewhere, where life will finally be as it should. Down to the harbor, down into the hold of the ship: to flee the now is always a descent into unconsciousness.

Yet the presence you are running from is not in a place. It is the aliveness of this very moment, and it is everywhere you go. You can pay the fare and board the ship and still arrive nowhere, because there is no shore beyond the present moment where you could finally be free of it.

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Ego v. Being lens

Live Jonah 1:3 today

  1. When your hand reaches for the phone to leave this moment, pause and let yourself stay in the plain unentertaining now for a few breaths. That is the whole practice.
  2. During a dull or awkward stretch with someone, the waiting room, the family dinner, the slow part of the call, stop wishing you were elsewhere and give them your full attention instead.
  3. In a day you want to be over, stop planning the escape, the weekend, the vacation, the other job, just long enough to be here. See what is actually in this hour that you were skipping past.

Where are you buying a ticket to a moment other than this one?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 47

The one who runs out looking for it travels far and understands less. It was never somewhere else.

Buddhism

Wherever you go, you take your mind with you. The restlessness you are fleeing boards every ship.

Stoicism · Seneca

You travel to escape yourself and arrive with the same company. Change the running, not the harbor.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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