Getting Closer to Beyond
There is something in our core characteristic Beyond that has always pointed us forward. We say often that wherever we are now is not where we will arrive. And I still believe that. But lately, I’ve been holding that idea a little differently.
Not as a promise of arrival—but as an invitation to stay close.
I’ve been sitting with an essay by David Whyte called Close. Whyte suggests that our human essence is not found in finally getting somewhere, but in being almost there. Close to one another. Close to success. Close to being done. Close to giving the whole thing up. He posits that we don’t become more fully ourselves through fulfillment or arrival, but by staying close—to the life we want, to the people we love, to the meaning we are trying to make.
There is something both beautiful and uncomfortable about that. Because to be close is to be vulnerable. It is to care about something enough to feel the distance between what is and what could be. It is to risk loss, disappointment, even heartbreak. And so, to choose to stay close—to consciously remain in that space—is an act of courage.
Thinking about the journey itself got me thinking about an old Indigo Girls song, Closer to Fine. They sing “the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” It offers us the insight that the search we’re all on isn’t about finding one final answer. It’s about learning to live inside the questions, to draw meaning from many places, and to trust that in the seeking itself, we are already becoming more whole.
I need to hear the promise of drawing close to meaning and understanding because the world right now feels far from what we hope it could be. There is so much that is fractured, so much that feels beyond our reach. And still, people like Malala Yousafzai remind us what it looks like to stay close anyway. In her TED Talk she talks about What She Got Wrong About Changing the World. She beckons us to follow her. To keep speaking, keep reaching, keep believing—not because we have arrived, but because we refuse to turn away from what matters.
And then there are the more personal places where this lives.
I think about my son, Jackson.
There is a part of me that wonders if he is closer now—closer to whatever truth, whatever peace, whatever wholeness exists beyond what we can see and touch here. And I wonder if he isn't closer to me and those who love him now that he isn’t bound by the limitations of physical presence. That may not make sense in any measurable way, but that doesn't mean it can't be true. It is its own kind of Beyond—a connection that transcends what we can fully understand, but not what we can feel.
I think, too, about my time in the Philippines, where I witnessed a kind of closeness that we often struggle to name here. A deep relational connection—not just to one another, but to something larger. Not necessarily religion, though many express it that way—but something more foundational. A sense of belonging within the universe itself. A quiet confidence about one’s place in it.
It made me wonder: how do we help cultivate that here?
At the Momentum Center, when we talk about Beyond, we are not just talking about goals, achievements, or even recovery—though those matter. We are also talking about something more interior. That inner pillar. That deep knowing that you are part of something larger than your current circumstances. That your story is not finished. That there is more—not just out there, but within you.
Maybe Beyond is not about arriving somewhere else.
Maybe it is about having the courage to stay close—to the life we are trying to live, to the world we are trying to build, and to the love we are not willing to let go of.
So wherever you find yourself right now, I invite you to consider this:
You may not have arrived.
But you are not where you once were.
And perhaps, in ways you cannot yet see, you are already closer than you think.
And that, too, is Beyond.
Namaste,
Barbara Lee
Experi-Mentor
Barbara@MomentumCenterGH.org
