Why, then, this emphasis on secrecy?

From our side, Jesus makes it plain enough:

Never parade your righteous piety,

By giving alms in public, and such stuff.

But what about from God’s side, why should he

Not only see in secret but subsist

There too, not always, yet consistently,

A god “who is in secret,” met by tryst.

Maybe when all the shouting died away,

And thunder on the mountain lost its charm,

He found conversing with a man of clay

More pleasing than the power of his arm.

What, after all, had really stuck with him,

From so much tumult in those glory days?

A bold remark from honest Abraham,

Or something Moses often used to say,

The ready heart of little Samuel,

Or sharp Elijah’s vehement complaint—

These were the things that really seemed to tell;

The rest, the rousing parts, seemed rather faint.

Imagine, then, a soul this sensitive,

Of infinite experience and age,

Discovering a better way to live

Than being forever on the public stage.

No less pervasive now, but otherwise,

More comfortable in kitchens than at court,

He learned, withdrawn, to his divine surprise,

That shy and omnipresent could consort.

Thus granting to himself such liberty,

Like many of his daughters and his sons,

The Lord of Hosts shunned too much company:

God often fares much better one-on-one.

This God will not be recognized by sight,

But left his token in the stray remark

Of one who, keeping vigil through the night,

Met him, a shadow in the living dark:

“I smelled the fragrance of a cedar tree,

And knowing that, I knew that it was he.”