The Finding in the Temple

A meditation

Three days. Come in through the doorway at the back, where they have just arrived — a man with a grey beard and a woman with her hands pressed together, both of them out of breath, both at the end of three days of not knowing. Look at her face. She has not slept.

And there he is. Not lost. Not frightened. Sitting up on a golden chair in the middle of the temple as though it were his, a boy of twelve in a green robe, one hand raised, explaining something to men three times his age. Look at them — the doctors in their fur and brocade, with their books open on their knees, pointing, disputing, one of them with his hand on his chest as if to say *how can this be.* He has turned their argument upside down, and he is not even trying.

Stand at the door with his parents. You have looked for him too — in the wrong places, for longer than three days, with that same sick feeling in your stomach. And then you found him where he had been all along: in his Father's house, about his Father's business, calm as morning.

She will go to him now and ask *why.* He will answer, and she will not understand the answer, and she will keep it anyway. That is what seeking God is, most of the time — not finding, but keeping. Keeping what you did not understand until the day you do.

Look at the boy on the golden chair once more before you go. He was never lost. Say that to yourself, the next time you are the one who cannot find him.