Epiphany Stars and Haiku-Like Creations

It is lovely to have a morning where I'm not racing around doing storm prep.  Yesterday I decided that I should leave even earlier than my usual MWF time of 7:15-7:30, so I was out the door just after 6.  I was able to get more gas for the car and stop by the grocery store one last time.  It turned out to be a wise decision.  I was able to get some ice melt granules, the ingredients for the seafood stew (recipe here) I want to cook today, and treats.

I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of student attendance yesterday.  Thursday night, the e-mail announcing distance learning on Monday went out.  I decided that I would hold class as normal, to respect the students who did come to class.  My 9 a.m. class was only missing 2 students, the normal absence rate.  By my afternoon class, the e-mail from the school president had gone out, telling students that we're looking at a significant ice storm and that they should go home if possible.  Still, I decided to have class.

Let me record the poetry writing experiment that I did with my English 102 students.  

On Wednesday, we looked at versions of the arrival of the Magi, which I described in this blog post.  Yesterday, I brought in poems inspired by the text, along with epiphany stars with words on the back.  

I began by having them choose three stars and writing the words on a piece of colored paper that I gave them.  I then talked about the ways I've used the stars as a pastor, the ways I describe in this post.  I had them think about the words while I passed out the first poem, Jan Richardson's "Wise Women Also Came."  As I read the poem, I had the students underline words and phrases that struck them for any reason, at least three.  We did the same thing with T.S. Eliot's "The Journey of the Magi."  We also had a bit of conversation.

I gave each student three more stars, and then we returned to the yellow sheets of paper.  I had them write one of the lines that they had underlined on the yellow paper.  Then they wrote one of the new star words.  Then they wrote words that rhymed with the star word or words that started with the same letter.  They wrote another line from the poem that they had underlined and another star word.  Then they wrote a New Year's resolution, theirs or someone else's.  Then another line from the poems and another star word.  I put this sentence on the board (You will ___________) and asked them to imagine that they met a wise sage that could foretell the future from the stars; what would they want the sage to fill in the blank or to say to them?  Then I had them write another line from the poem.

Now they had a lot of stuff on the yellow paper, and we moved to the condensing part of the creation process.  I showed them my collage with the haiku-like creation I created a few weeks ago with my neighborhood friend and creativity partner:

Here's the haiku-like creation that I wrote:

Wise ones return home
but by a different way
empire's long shadow.

I do tell them that there's so much more to haiku than just the syllable count, but for now, we're only focusing on syllables, as a way to try condensing ideas and lines into something that might be more profound, but it doesn't have to be.

We took the last 10 minutes of class for students to try their hand.  They came up with some interesting short/haiku-like creations.  If I had more time, it would be interesting to add collaging to this process, to see if images prompt anything different.

This experience has been so fruitful that I'm adding it to my list of possibilities for my creative writing class.  

And now, since the day is not going to improve in terms of weather, let me go out on a walk.  I am not likely to have a chance to walk outside again for the next few days, in the storm and its aftermath.

Genocidal Despots and Poems

I am taking 2 wonderful seminary classes, and I'm so happy that I get to end my MDiv on this note, with two wonderful classes in my last term, no drudgery work.  Last night's class is a New Testament class called "Birth, Death, and Back Again:  Christmas and Easter."  It looks at Christmas and Easter texts without the in between, and I am loving it.  In my first year, it was offered, but it was onground, so I couldn't take it.  This semester, it's virtual.  It's not offered every semester, so I'm glad that I had a chance to take it--an advantage to taking a slightly slower route to graduation.

Last night we discussed Matthew 2:  1-23, the visit of the magi, the flight to Egypt, the massacre of Bethlehem boys, and the return.  It was the kind of class meeting where I took extensive notes and thought, I need to remember these details for next year's Christmas season sermons.

Of course, the most powerful part of last night's class is one that I'll probably use more in funeral sermons than in Christmas sermons.  We talked about Herod's slaughter of the Bethlehem boys under the age of 2 and asked the question of why Joseph gets a dream that saves Jesus, but the other parents in Bethlehem don't.  Does God allow genocide?

My professor, Dr. Laura Holmes, finished our discussion of the death of the innocents by reminding us that salvation/redemption/liberation comes with a high price, and not just for Jesus; there's lots and lots of damage to those around him. 

In other words, Jesus came into our world that is ruled by empires, by genocidal despots, by the people in charge who are scared and thus make terrible decisions.  I realize that that on some level, my professor's response doesn't answer the question.  My own answer, as people who read every blog entry of mine will know, is that God isn't all powerful and that evil forces do have a lot of power, and that those two facts often lead to bloodshed, which is not what God wants, but God can't always prevent it.

I admire my professor's ability to give us insight and encourage class discussion.  I hate the classes that are too focused on student presentations.  I am paying for the professor's expertise--if I wanted to be taught by peers, who may or may not have extensive experience, I can do that much more cheaply than a seminary class.  Last night we had both expertise and really insightful class discussion.

When class started, I thought about one of my all-time favorite poems I've ever written, a poem that imagines what might have happened had the magi showed up at the Southern border.   The final poem had multiple strands: Epiphany, the perpetual crisis on the border, the crisis between east and west that ultimately led to the taking down of the wall between East and West Germany, a bit of the underground railroad.  As the class went on, lines of new poetry kept bubbling up in my brain.  Happily, I had a blank legal pad nearby, so I wrote them down.  It was wonderful to feel inspired.

I am not sure I can transform those lines into anything that I like as much as the poem that I'll post below, the poem that was published in Sojourners in 2020.  

 

Border Lands

I am the border agent who looks
the other way. I am the one
who leaves bottled water in caches
in the harsh border lands I patrol.

I am the one who doesn’t shoot.
I let the people assemble,
with their flickering candles a shimmering
river in the dark. “Let them pray,”
I tell my comrades. “What harm
can come of that?” We holster
our guns, and open a bottle to share.

I am the superior
officer who loses the paperwork
or makes up the statistics.
I am the one who ignores
your e-mails, who cannot be reached
by text or phone, the one
with a full inbox.

When the wise ones
come, as they do, full of dreams,
babbling about the stars
that lead them or messages
from gods or angels,
I open the gates. I don’t alert
the authorities up the road.
Let the kings and emperors
pay for their own intelligence.

I should scan the horizons,
but I tend the garden
I have planted by the shed
where we keep the extra
barbed wires. I grow a variety
of holy trinities: tomatoes, onions,
peppers, beans, squashes of all sorts.
I plant a hedge of sunflowers,
each bright head a north star.

Epiphany 2025

I am one of those people who always checks the weather.  In part, it's because I want to make sure I'm dressed for whatever is coming, and in part, because I want to be prepared in other ways.  On Saturday, the church council president texted me to ask if I was concerned about the weather.  On Saturday, the weather service for Bristol, TN was forecasting the wintery mix to begin falling in the middle of the afternoon.  I thought we had plenty of time to clear out of town before that happened, and I wasn't too worried about travel across the mountains.  Plus I knew that the forecast for our side of the mountains didn't call for any moisture at all.

I had a great Sunday planned, and the energy in the church was wonderful.  The church was still decorated for Christmas, and during the children's sermon, I gave them each a fabric angel.  

We talked about how God speaks to us, through angel choirs and stars, and that the most important thing to remember is that if you hear a voice telling you that you're worthless, it's not God talking, but someone else.  If they remember nothing else from our time together, I hope they remember that one message that I bring up periodically.

Then I had the youth help pass out the Epiphany stars:

My sermon talked about our Christmas to Epiphany journey, how God spoke to people then and how God still speaks to people now.  I thought it went well.  You can view it for yourself and decide; it's posted here on my YouTube channel; you can also read a version in this post on this blog.

As we processed out to "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," I looked out the plate glass door to the church and realized it was snowing.  I wasn't really concerned, since it had just started.  

We had planned to take communion to a parishioner in the hospital on our way back, but I became more and more concerned about how rapidly the weather conditions were deteriorating.  So we decided to just keep pressing ahead.  We got onto I 81, and then I got really concerned about how the conditions were deteriorating, how much slush there was on the interstate, which had been treated with a de-icing agent, but was still slick in places, with icy rain/sleet/snow falling from the sky.

Happily, we were headed south, so even though we climbed in elevation to get across the mountain range, the wintry mix changed to rain.  We stopped at the welcome center on the NC/TN border to chip away at the ice that had formed on the windshield and wipers.  The whole front of the car was cased in ice, something neither one of us had ever seen before (and my spouse grew up in Indiana in the snowy 70's).

It took much longer than our usual commute home, but we made it home safely.  We made a stir fry and settled in to watch Street Gang:  How We Got to Sesame Street.  The documentary of the early days of Sesame Street was just what we needed for Epiphany Eve.  It was wonderful to be reminded of the magic that can happen when people are set free to experiment, to try something new, to see what happens.

And here we are, another Epiphany.  It makes me sad that for many people, this date will be associated with violent domestic attack on the U.S. Capitol, instead of a day of thinking about insights and new information.  Of course, the Epiphany story has always had a shadow side, a jealous ruler (Herod) and insecurity that leads to a bloodbath.

Today and every day, we would be wise to think of our own power, our own feelings of inadequacy, how we attempt to control the elements of our lives or how we don't.  We would be wise to think about all the strangers who show up to tell us of a different way, a different paradigm.  We would be wise to keep our eyes trained to larger vistas.

Preparing for Epiphany

Some years in church, it's easier to work in Epiphany than other years.  Last year, New Year's Day was on a Sunday, which was a Lessons and Carols Sunday, which meant I could be away.  January 7, the following Sunday, was the Baptism of Our Lord Sunday.  But this year, the Feast Day of Epiphany (Jan. 6) falls on the day after Christmas II; if I had been in charge of the Lectionary, we'd be doing Epiphany tomorrow, instead of the first chapter of John.

Happily, I've thought of a way to make it all work.  I wanted to do a repeat of the Epiphany stars that I did for my Florida church in 2017, and happily, I thought of this possibility before it was too late.  I took advantage of some post-Christmas sales and bought some glittery cardstock.  I downloaded some templates.  I invited some neighborhood Create in Me friends over to play.  

I knew that I would be creating stars for Sunday, and it was fine with me if my friends helped or if they created Epiphany cards to give away.  We had a great time doing a mix of projects, and in the end, I got my stars done in record time.

I wrote words on the back of each one.  As we talked, words came to me, and I used them.  I want to believe it's the Holy Spirit at work, but it may be my own brain.  I had looked at some word lists, like this one, but in the end, I went my own way.

I will be suggesting that members of my congregation use them in a variety of ways.  They're portable, which means they could travel through the year, in a pocket, a backpack, or a car.  We could use the word to inform our reading through the year or to inform the way we view popular media or the news.  We could use the word and think about the variety of meanings, as well as the kind of meditating that we'd be doing if we had pulled a word that meant the opposite. 

But most important, I want us to use the stars to train ourselves to listen for what God might be saying.  We won't always have an angel choir or a John the Baptist yelling at us.  We live in increasing amounts of noise, and a star word might be what we need to focus our brains to look away from what the powers and principalities of our time want us to stay focused on, the stories that cause us to feel fear and pain and powerlessness.

Epiphany Ponderings

I was up early this morning, listening to the precipitation, trying to determine if it was rain or ice or sleet.  I thought of Epiphany, read T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi," remembered a poem I had written in response (go here to read it), did some internet wandering, came across an idea in a blog post of mine, and wrote a few lines in response.

Two years ago, I wrote, "I am thinking of the angel warning Joseph in a dream to flee to Egypt, and he does. Did other parents in Bethlehem that night dream of angels with strange messages about their infant boys? Did they remember their dreams? Were they haunted by the memory?"

This morning I wrote about being frozen in place, unable to escape what's coming.  Part of me wants to turn it into a poem that references Gaza; part of me thinks it will be stronger if it's more universal.  Sadly, the death statistics out of Gaza, while shocking, are not unusual for any given year.  At least, I think that's true.

I took some pictures of the ice on the branches, pictures that have more a Halloween vibe than an Epiphany vibe.  Here's one:

I am also thinking of a squirrel who seems to be making a home in a pumpkin by our fenceline:

Hoping the animals would eat them, I put the autumn pumpkins down at the back fence after Thanksgiving.  For weeks, the animals have paid them no mind.  For the few days I was gone, they have now eaten their way through much of the largest pumpkin, and last night, I watched a squirrel hollowing out one of the other pumpkins.  I like to think that he is there now, listening to the rain/ice/sleet patter on his pumpkin home.

All of this may come together into a poem eventually.  Looking through my files, I'm amazed at how many Epiphany poems I have.  And I do remember that they didn't all come together immediately.   One of my favorites that I've written was published in Sojourners; go here for process notes and to read the poem. 

I am also thinking of the attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021.  It seems there should be a poem that pulls that event into its Epiphany orbit, but anything I have to say poetically seems much too obvious at this point.

Let me add one more detail to this rather disjointed blog post:

Scholar Wil Gafney made this Facebook post last night:  "Merry 12th night! It is the 12th day of Christmas and instead of finality, there is a sense of expectation. Sometime during the night a number of sages trained in astrology and other sciences will come from the east. Tradition says they are three men but that little plural in Greek could also include women and no number is given. Tonight we celebrate the end of one holy season and the beginning of another."

Getting Ready for Epiphany

I know that many churches will not be celebrating Epiphany as its own Sunday.  Still, we could celebrate Epiphany as a season.  Here are two ideas:

--We could decorate.  I have this on the brain because yesterday I helped my mom and dad decorate their church in Williamsburg, St. Stephen Lutheran.  We got there to find that the heavy work had been done, the Moravian stars hung:

But even if you don't have the budget for these types of stars, you could still decorate.  We hung cardstock stars strung on ribbons.  Some of them had been decorated with glitter, and some were white.

This project would be so easy, and it makes the sanctuary so much more festive.  We looped them around the candles that line the walls, but if you're nervous/cautious about climbing and draping (as we all should be), you could string them in other ways.

--You could use star words even if you're not celebrating Epiphany.  Star words involve having a bag of stars with evocative words on them, words like "Peace" and "Say Yes" and "Say No" and "Patience" and on and on I could go.   You can find a more comprehensive list here.

Some people on social platforms will choose a star word for us.  Here's mine for 2024:

People use these words in all sorts of ways.  We could meditate on the word or use the word to focus on what God might say to us.  We could see how the word is used in the Bible.  We could do a Google search.  We could write for 5 minutes without stopping to see what comes up for us.

I wrote a blog post about the process and the possibilities here, and if you want to use your star words in a group, in a Bible study sort of process, I wrote a blog post about how to do that here.

I love the way Epiphany amplifies the Advent message of the importance of staying awake and alert. Some of us will hear God speaking through an angel choir.  Some will hear God speaking in dreams.  Some of us will have an encounter with a John the Baptist, some type of prophet that speaks God's word in a way that only he or she can.  But others of us will study the sky for years or decades, looking for a sign, waiting patiently.  Epiphany reminds us of the need to raise our eyes from the minutiae that can consume us, the need to stay alert as we study the expanse of what we don't fully understand, as we appreciate the mystery.

Epiphany Ramblings

When I saw that the National Cathedral was having an Epiphany service at noon, I decided to rearrange my plans and go to the National Gallery after the service.  I had planned to see the Vermeer exhibit.

In retrospect, I could have walked back to my seminary apartment after worship and been just as happy.  The worship service was perfect for the day.  When I knelt to take communion at this rail, I looked at this vast carving behind the altar, with stained glass windows above it, and I felt my spirit soar, just as the architects and artists intended:

Then I walked to the Metro stop to go downtown.  I got a bit turned around, but happily, I had my phone and Google Maps was able to direct me.  I went straight to the National Gallery, where I expected to walk right in to the Vermeer exhibit; after all, it's been here since October.

I got there at 2, and the woman staffing the Information desk told me there was a 4 hour wait.  I can't think of anything I'm willing to wait in a 4 hour line to see, so I went to the other exhibit I wanted to see:  Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South.  Some of the artists are still alive, and they all lived and created in the 20th century.  Many of them lived in Gee's Bend, but the scope is much larger.

I had seen a larger exhibit of Gee's Bend quilts back in 2004 or so.  I have mixed feelings about them as works of art.  I could make the claim that some of them, like the above, are both art and bed covering.  But some of them, like this one, are not:

The big panels of fabric don't seem like an artist intent on breaking the rules--it speaks to me of someone who wishes she didn't have to do this.  There's no quilting on the piece.  I'm not sure what holds the layers together.  The stitches on the edges are loose, which again, says to me that the creator was not delighting in the process.  It's very unlike this quilt which has intricate stitches and quilting done by hand:

It wasn't all quilts.  There were interesting works of assembled pieces that some of us wouldn't even see as art materials:

There was painted and welded metals:

I was most captivated by the works of Thornton Dial, who assembled all sorts of materials into works of art.  Here's one that uses a frame of mattress coils (what mattresses used to contain as their core) as the base of the art:

This one of Thornton Dial's, called "Refugees Trying to Get to the United States" has a message, with its pink, yellow, and brown headlike objects in the center, but I'm not exactly sure what it is.

After I took in the special exhibit, I wandered through the other gallery that had selections from the Gallery's collection of works of art from the first 5 decades of the 20th century, mostly paintings.  It was strange to look at the works of Picasso and Miro after seeing the works in the special exhibit.  They seemed flat and dull, even though I understand how they broke new ground, making it possible for works like those in the special exhibit.  I also understand that they had different resources and different objectives and lived in very different life circumstances at a very different place and time.

I returned home a bit worn out, which makes sense--my phone tells me that I walked almost 7 miles yesterday.  For much of the afternoon, even if I wasn't walking, I was on my feet.  After my video call with my spouse, I read for a bit and went to bed extra early, even for me.  I was asleep before 8, and I slept until just after 5, and it was a sound sleep.

In an hour, I'll leave to go see my 16 year old nephew at a swim meet.  It will be a different day, but I'm looking forward to it.

Epiphany Stars and Prayers

Yesterday, I decided that I needed to change my cover photo on Facebook; my old one had Christmas themes.  I had Epiphany on the brain, or more specifically Epiphany Eve.  I hadn't snapped a picture that would have been good for Epiphany on Christmas Eve, so I looked back through my trove of pictures.  I chose this one from an Epiphany star project that I did for a church a few years ago; I chose this one because of the twinkly lights:

When I chose this picture yesterday, I couldn't see the words on the star.  I feel like I've gotten an important message.  Of course, back in 2017 when I took this picture, I also felt like I was getting an important message.  I don't think it bothers me that the message hasn't changed.  I am pondering saying yes to a whole different set of questions five years later.

I was prompted to change my Facebook photo after reading my e-mails.  Our director of the spiritual director certificate program wrote us an e-mail to let us know that the seminary campus was without electricity, and how she was trying not to lose heart:

"In my prayer this morning, I reflected on John 1, in which Jesus asks the disciples to 'come and see.' This is the invitation—to 'come and see' how God is at work when plans fall apart, when we have no power and all is dark, when we have to adapt, and adapt, and adapt again, when a pandemic continues wrecking griefs of all kinds. . . when the light of Epiphany seems dim. Jesus says, 'come and see.'”

She concluded this way:  "Maybe we will be the light of Epiphany for each other tomorrow. Let’s 'come and see.'”

I wrote her a supportive e-mail:

"Just wanted to write a quick note to tell you that I love the pastoral spirit of this e-mail, that I am bolstered by your words of good cheer in the face of adversity, that I love the reminder that God invites us to come and see what God is up to in this world of wreck and ruin--and that new creation comes in the midst of wreck and ruin. Our beloved community will rise to this occasion."

We ended up having our afternoon session at Columbia College, dinner back at the seminary campus, and our evening worship service in the muted beauty of the seminary chapel.  I loved hearing the magnificent organ and seeing the candles flicker.  I loved the sermon, which referenced Archbishop Tutu and reminded us of the importance of being Christ in the world the way that Tutu was.

This morning, I will assist with the morning service.  I will offer some prayers of intercession.  Let me finish this post by jotting down some possibilities:

For those of us who need help understanding the signs that they see, let us pray:

For those of us who search for new leadership and new directions, let us pray:

For those of us who lose control of our fears and insecurities, let us pray:

For those of us finding that we need to take a new road, let us pray:

For those of us who need a new dream, let us pray:

For all of us, we pray.

Help us to bring the message of God's love to the world, whether our approach is more like the angel choirs or the steady light of a distant star.  Help us to be the star, shining a message of God's love to the world.  Give us the courage to follow our visions.

Epiphany Sunday, Epiphany Week

Although the actual feast day is January 6, on January 2, many churches will observe Epiphany, the day when we celebrate the arrival of the magi from the East to see and bring gifts to the baby Jesus. We may or may not remember the rest of the story. This year, even more than other years, I am thinking of the murderous Herod. I am thinking of those travelers, those academics who studied the stars but not human behavior, who inadvertently set a crisis into motion. I am thinking of Herod, unbalanced Herod, so threatened that he killed all those children who might have grown up to be a threat to him.

Literalists may protest that there's no shred of evidence that this massacre actually happened. Surely history would have recorded this slaughter, this genocide. The story about Herod's murder of toddlers and babies may not be literally true, but it wouldn't be behavior that would be out of the realm of possibility for Herod.

Like many stories in the Bible, even if it isn't factually true, the story points to a larger truth.

But even if we don't think that Herod's story speaks to us, it offers a powerful testimony to the corrosive effects of power. We would be wise to think of our own power, our own feelings of inadequacy, how we attempt to control the elements of our lives or how we don't. We would be wise to think about how these stories play out on larger stages.

These past decades, many of us have had a closer look at the behavior of rulers who have felt threatened, and it's not a pretty sight. We see many people killed in the crossfire and killed by the fall out. We see lives diminished and potential stamped out.

We see the truth of that proverb that warns us that without imagination, the people will perish.

We would be wise to think about all the strangers who show up to tell us of a different way, a different paradigm.

We would be wise to keep our eyes trained to larger vistas. Sometimes the Good News comes in ways we can't ignore, like those angel choirs in the sky, but for some of us, the message is more subtle.

Now is also a good time to think about wisdom, about gifts, about staying alert and watchful. Let us not forget these important Advent and Christmas messages. Most of us have already bid good-bye to Christmas and returned to our every day lives. Today is a good day to take one last Epiphany moment, to recover our capacity for wonder, to delight in the miraculous, to look for the unexpected, and to rejoice in the amazing Good News of a God who loves us so much that the Divine One comes to live with us.

One Last Look Back at Epiphany 2021

Before we get too far away from Epiphany, let me post a sketch and the haiku-like creation that I made:

Cold cosmos, keep watch
Follow the star so distant
Promises fulfilled.

And after I worked on finishing this sketch, I went for a jog.  I made this Facebook post:

"I am that woman out for her morning jog before 6 a.m., that woman who hollers, "Happy Epiphany!" to a group of tipsy teenagers, toddling home from the beach.

I am a bright, shining star."

Looking back, I think about how enthusiastic I felt about the fact that one Georgia Senate seat had gone to a Democrat, and I had hopes for the second seat too.  And then, the events of the day unraveled with the invasion of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C.

And yet, I still feel hopeful.  I know that events like the ones on Wednesday can be the ones that set a country on a different trajectory.  Hopefully we will choose a better one.

Politics, Ancient and Modern, on the Feast Day of the Epiphany

 Perhaps I will write about Georgia later.  Perhaps by then, others will have written eloquent pieces about Georgia.  Perhaps by then we'll know for sure who won each race.  Right now, one race has been called by the AP for the Democrat, who happens to be the pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr.'s church.  He will be the first black senator to serve Georgia (I think).

Perhaps I will write about what happens in Congress today later, when I know what happens in Congress today, a day when Congress accepts/affirms the certified election results from the Electoral College.  There will be Congress people who object to the results, which is just unfathomable to me.  Did they not take a vow to protect the Constitution?  Do vows mean nothing to people anymore?

Rhetorical questions.

As I've been paying attention to national politics and the pace of the pandemic, I've also had Epiphany on the brain.  The Feast Day of the Epiphany celebrates the ways in which the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus is revealed early in the Christ story.  More specifically, the Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the wise men from the East to see and bring gifts to the baby Jesus.

We may or may not remember the rest of the story.  This year, even more than other years, I am thinking of the murderous Herod.  I am thinking of those travelers, those academics who studied the stars but not human behavior, who inadvertently set a crisis into motion.  I am thinking of Herod, unbalanced Herod, so threatened that he killed all those children who might have grown up to be a threat to him.

Literalists may protest that there's no shred of evidence that this massacre actually happened.  Surely history would have recorded this slaughter, this genocide.  The story about Herod's murder of toddlers and babies may not be literally true, but it wouldn't be behavior that would be out of the realm of possibility for Herod.

Like many stories in the Bible, even if it isn't factually true, the story points to a larger truth.

These past years, many of us have had a closer look at the behavior of old white men who have felt threatened, and it's not a pretty sight.  We see many people killed in the crossfire and killed by the fall out.  We see lives diminished and potential stamped out.

We see the truth of that proverb that warns us that without imagination, the people will perish.  

Would old white women have behaved the same way?  Who can say?  Women have never had the kind of power that old white men get to have throughout history.  It is hard for me to imagine this kind of behavior if women did have that kind of power, at least not in the same kind of widespread way.  Maybe after women have had that kind of power for thousands of years, maybe after that kind of power has sapped all empathy.

But even if we don't think that Herod's story speaks to us, it offers a powerful testimony to the corrosive effects of power.  We would be wise to think of our own power, our own feelings of inadequacy, how we attempt to control the elements of our lives or how we don't.

We would be wise to think about all the strangers who show up to tell us of a different way, a different paradigm.

We would be wise to keep our eyes trained to larger vistas.