Hide and seek

From the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday 1st June 2014

Then Jesus was taken up, and a cloud hid him from their sight. (Acts 1:9)

Did you ever play ‘Hide and Seek’? It was once a favourite children’s game and it didn’t cost a penny! I’ve come to see that ‘Hide and Seek’ can teach us much about our relationship with God. There’s a story about a father playing ‘Hide and Seek’ with his little son. He couldn’t get the little lad to understand that he shouldn’t shout “Ready!” when he found a good hiding place. That he was making it too easy to find him. But it took the father some time to understand that, from the young lad’s point of view, getting found was the best part! He wanted to be found. He delighted in being found! Master Eckhart (1260 – 1328) understood this very well when he said, “God is like someone who clears his throat loudly while hiding and so gives himself away.” Like that little boy, God’s greatest joy in hiding is also in being found. Too often we associate the hiddenness of God with fear, with a sense of remoteness and inaccessibility. We overlook the playfulness involved. God’s hiding is rooted above all in compassion. God hides to gently draw us to himself.

In the Jewish tradition there’s a very different story of ‘Hide and Seek’. A little boy comes running to his father crying inconsolably. Between big sobs, he manages to say, “Dad, I’ve been playing hide and seek with the other children. It came my turn to hide but after I found a good place in the woods I sat there for hours waiting for someone to find me. But no one came! They left me there alone! His father held him and hugged him and said, “Ah, my son, that’s how it is with God too. God is always hiding, hoping that people will come looking for him. But no one wants to play. He’s always left alone wanting to be found.” This simple story expresses well the mystery of God’s great compassion, wanting so much to draw us to himself. But we often draw back in fear, slow to believe in a God of hidden glory and surprised to find ourselves lovingly sought after by this hidden God.
The third story is about a little girl and her favourite trick in ‘Hide and Seek’ was to pretend to run away and hide. She would tell her Dad to close his eyes and start counting. She would then pretend to run away but immediately came sneaking back to stand right beside him while he was still counting with his eyes shut tight. She breathed as silently as she could, standing inches away. And then she’d squeal with delight when he opened his eyes and found her right there beside him. This wasn’t ‘Hide and Seek’ at all. She was breaking all the rules! But the father loved her version of the game, loved pretending he didn’t know she was there, and loved her delight in surprising him. God for him to this day is his seven year old daughter, slipping back across the grass, wanting once again to surprise him with a presence closer than he ever expected.

The 14th.Century mystic who wrote the ‘Cloud of Unknowing’ knew God hides from those he cherishes to increase their longing to find him and he said, “We must break through that thick cloud with longing love.”