Having just returned from summer Boy Scout camp, I have found the story of Brennan Hawkins (the missing Utah scout who was found yesterday) especially touching. Another scout who went missing from the same area last year has never been found. The experience of briefly losing my son in a theme park gave me some small inkling what it must have been like to find the boy whole and unharmed.
The thoughts that go through a parent’s head, even in the short space of forty-five minutes, probably make the episode more traumatic for the parents than the lost child. I was, of course, flooded with emotions when I finally came upon my son
(then eight years old) wandering in the crowd. I was joyful, relieved,
thankful… all the good things – but I was also a little irritated
with him for having wandered off. I’m sure it was less than a minute
before I said something like "You had us all worried sick!".
Which, naturally enough, brings me to the Rosary.
I have sometimes felt that the Finding of Jesus in the Temple was somewhat out of place among the Joyful Mysteries. While the other four mysteries strike me a s naturally joyful, the Finding has always made me reach a little. There is joy there, but there are so many other emotions involved (dread, relief) that joy seems a bit crowded out. Even sinless Mary felt compelled to say "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.". Joy simply is not the first thing that leaps out at me from that verse.
But the accumulated Catholic wisdom of the centuries has placed the event alongside the Annunciation and the Nativity as a Joyful Mystery, so I find myself compelled to explore it more deeply. The recent finding of Brennan Hawkins has helped me, I think. While there is a torrent of conflicting emotions surrounding a lost child, the one that should remain at the end is Joy. C.S. Lewis wrote a great deal about joy, making it clear that it should not be confused with mere happiness. Real joy can even be a frightening thing at times, a mysterious thing. Jesus talked a good deal about the joy of finding what was lost; a sheep, a coin, a repentant sinner.
Brennan Hawkins was lost for four days, my son for less than an hour. Finding Brennan alive and uninjured after all that time alone in the wilderness was almost too much to hope for. I had not yet reached that point with my son, even though horrid thoughts had entered my mind. Perhaps the Finding of Jesus in the Temple is a fitting way to remind us of all that we should be joyful about. We can be an ungrateful bunch, at times.
I think maybe Brennan’s parents now have a perspective on life that we should all try to grasp, even if we never have to go through a similar experience.
GET BRENNAN’S STORY.
One of the debates that is playing out across editorial pages here in New York is the slanted reporting of missing persons in the news.
Attractive, white, blonde girls and women are most often reported on the news as missing even though they make up a tiny fraction of missing persons while white and black men, who make up about 55% of missing persons, receive very little coverage.