I have often wondered who waits for whom? I somehow remember that a guy chases a girl until she catches him. Do I wait for the Lord or is the Lord waiting for me? Is the Lord hiding in an obvious place like behind a branch without leaves and is all excited when found. Am I the one looking? Am I the one to be found? We have made many pilgrimages to almost all the Holy Places. The real issue is that we need to look in more obvious places. What obvious place would Jesus hide? An inn? A barn? A cave? A crib? I think we need to ask the question about ourselves. Where and how do we hide? Under piles of work? Busy, busy, busy? In the yard? I could focus on any of those. I choose to speak about hiding behind past hurts or wounds. Wounded wolves, they tell me, hide in a corner. They howl and bark to protect the wound. If you approach, the howl becomes fiercer and more angry. The fierce anger, in the mind of the wolf, hides the wound. No one can get near it! I see God hiding behind a leafless branch excited at the opportunity of being found, and we are hiding behind our bark and growl. No one can come near. So, how do we come together? In our fair or unfair bark, we wait and wait and wait. Like the tantrum of a spoiled child, we have to wait it out and see the branch. The Lord is there all along, still excited about being found. All of our prayer is not a denial of our wounds. Our prayer is an invitation to take the risk and find a new way of healing the pain by looking behind the branch. Help to make this Advent a prayerful time of waiting to see who finds whom? Would you not wait so that the Lord might meet you?