Epiphany Approaches

The actual feast day of the Epiphany arrives on Monday; some churches will celebrate tomorrow.  Let us take this week-end before Epiphany to hold on to the Christmas magic as we transition back to regular life.

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.  Often, the Epiphany season also includes the baptism of Jesus, which in some Gospels, can include a descending dove and God telling us that Jesus is God's son, with whom God is well pleased.

Note that God is well pleased even before Jesus has done a thing.  For those of us who suffer self-loathing because we feel we're not doing enough and we're not living up to our full potential, perhaps we could take this lesson and back off a little.

Or maybe we want to take a completely different approach.  Perhaps on this week-end Feast Day of the Epiphany, we could move towards having an epiphany of our own about our lives.

The word epiphany in literary circles has come to mean a sudden insight (that's the most simplistic definition).  Here's the epiphany I'm hoping for today/this year:  what am I put on this earth to do?  What creative work is most important?  If I didn't have all the time in the world--and we don't--what would I focus upon?

We hear a lot of talk in the world about writer's block, but that is not the reality for the creative folks I know.  Most folks I know have far too many interests to be blocked.  For most people I know, the difficulty comes with having too little time and floundering in terms of not being able to decide what work is most important.  Let this be the year that we determine early what our essential work is, and let this be the year that we commit to that work and bring it to fullness.

But maybe you'd like a more light-hearted approach to the Feast Day of the Epiphany.  The Christmas to Epiphany season is a festival of light.  How can we get more light into our lives?

If you're a scented candle person, Yankee Candle is having a great sale right now, and it's not just their Christmas scents (at least not on their website).  There are candles that are half price and 75% off.  Often the website has great deals on shipping, which is good, because those candles are heavy.

 Or maybe you need a better desk lamp or better reading light.

Or maybe you need metaphorical light.  What books have brought you joy and inspiration?  Resolve to read them more often, even daily or weekly.  Invite more light of every kind into your life!  Watch your favorite movies.  Seek out the T.V. shows that make you glad to be alive--and avoid the ones that make you anxious (like the local news, for example) or unworthy.  Listen to music that inspires you.

The Feast Day of the Epiphany can also be about gifts, and if you have any extra money, now can be a great time to buy yourself a gift when much of it is on sale.  Buy yourself some new undergarments!  That sweater you've had your eye on is likely on sale, and many of us still have a few months of cooler weather left.  Buy a calendar that makes you happy--it's probably on sale right now.  Stock up on your favorite, seasonal coffees and teas.  Buy Christmas cards and decorations for next year.

And don't forget the gift of time.  Many social justice/service agencies would be happy to see some extra hands right now.  If you don't have time to give, send some money.

Or maybe this is all too airy for you.  Maybe you need to plant some seeds that will bring epiphanies of their own in the coming months.  Maybe you need to cook.

Why not bake some 3 Kings Bread?  Here's a blog post that gives the recipe along with photos.  And for those of you who say "Bread?  I can't possibly bake bread!", I say, "Yes, you can."  This recipe is for a yeasted bread, but it requires no kneading.  And while you could include candied fruit, you don't have to.  For those of you still adhering to your New Year's resolutions to eat better, this recipe can work for you too:  it's somewhat sweet, but also fairly healthy.

For those of us who still have yet to put away our Christmas decorations, this week-end should probably be the time.  Many of us have been on vacation, and this week many of us return to work for the first time.  On this week-end before the Feast Day of the Epiphany, many of us will need to put our lives back into a certain order to get ready for tomorrow.

But before we let go of Christmas entirely, let's take a bit more time to savor the season.  Have one last cookie or cup of Christmas tea.  Think about how you will continue to infuse sweetness into your post-holiday life.  Think about the twinkly lights and the star that is so central to the Christian Christmas story.  How can you get more light into your life?  What star waits for you to notice and to follow its guidance?  What gifts do you need?  What gifts does the world need from you?

Epiphany Eve

Tomorrow is the feast day of the Epiphany, the day that celebrates the arrival of the wise men who come to meet the young Jesus.

Of course, in literary terms, epiphany means something different, although related.

If you want to spend today thinking about epiphanies in literature, we might take a moment and read some of the masters of epiphany, like Flannery O'Connor or James Joyce. Here's what Garrison Keillor says about Joyce and epiphany on The Writer's Almanac:

"Around the time that Irish writer James Joyce was defecting from the Roman Catholic Church, he was investing secular meaning into the word "epiphany." In his early 20s, he drew up little sketches, sort of like "prose poems," in which he illustrated epiphanies. He explained to his brother Stanislaus that epiphanies were sort of 'inadvertent revelations' and said they were 'little errors and gestures — mere straws in the wind — by which people betrayed the very things they were most careful to conceal.' He also wrote that the epiphany was the sudden 'revelation of the whatness of a thing,' the moment when 'the soul of the commonest object ... seems to us radiant.'

It was a literary device that James Joyce would use in every story in his collection Dubliners (1914), a technique that he would become known for and that many modern writers would emulate. Joyce's Dubliners ends with a story set at a party for the Feast of the Epiphany, 'The Dead,' and the story ends: 'His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.'"

I tend to think of the use of epiphany as limited to fiction or essay writers, but I'm sure I'm wrong.  In fact, lately I've been thinking of epiphany in a spiritual context--but I suspect that our spiritual epiphanies might be less dramatic.  Or maybe more so.

 Perhaps these literary approaches to epiphany are too intellectual.  Maybe it's time for some bread dough!

Many cultures celebrate Three Kings Day with a special bread.  Many families have charms that are baked into the bread that signify what will come in the new year.  Even if you don't have special charms, you could use things you do have:  a nut, a foil wrapped coin, a dried cranberry, a piece of frozen fruit.

This blog post gives you a recipe, with photos, for a simple, no-knead 3 Kings Bread.  Why not bake it for tomorrow?

As you bake the bread, you might ponder the word "epiphany" and all its variants.  What epiphanies do you need/knead for the coming year?

Epiphany Eve

Here we are, at the 12th day of Christmas, the day before Epiphany.  Tradition has it that we should take down our Christmas decorations today, to avoid bad luck in the new year.  Hmm.  I've always waited until Epiphany--although if I'm being honest, I often wait until my husband does it, and he usually takes care of the undecorating on Epiphany.

On Jan Richardson's blog post, I read about an interesting tradition, Women's Christmas, which is traditionally celebrated on Epiphany:  "In some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is celebrated as Women's Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women's Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a break and celebrate together at the end of the holidays."

She also includes a link to a free download of her Retreat for Women's Christmas, which includes poems and artwork and blessings and writing/thinking prompts--a great resource if you're in the mood for a contemplative treat with a spiritual theme, all done in a wonderful way.

Similarly, in this post, Beth Adams offers wonderful Epiphany art, along with a link to the Evensong service she'll be participating in tomorrow.

Once upon a time, we might have been preparing for 12th night festivities tonight, but I suspect that most of us don't celebrate these customs anymore.  In today's post on The Writer's Almanac site, we learn:

"In some parts of England, Twelfth Night was also traditionally associated with apples and apple trees. People would troop out to their fruit orchards bearing a hot, spiced mixture of cider and ale for the 'wassailing of the trees.' They would pour the wassail on the ground over the trees' roots, and sing songs, and drink toasts to the health of their orchards. They also hung bits of cider-soaked toast in the trees to feed the birds. The attention paid to the orchards during the wassailing would be repaid with a bountiful harvest the following fall.


English settlers in the Colonies brought the Twelfth Night tradition with them. In colonial Virginia, it was customary to hold a large and elegant ball. Revelers chose a king and queen using the customary cake method; it was the king's duty to host the next year's Twelfth Night ball, and the queen was given the honor of baking the next year's cake. George and Martha Washington didn't usually do much for Christmas except attend church, but they often hosted elaborate Twelfth Night celebrations. It was also their anniversary; they'd been married on January 5, 1759. Martha Washington left behind her recipe for an enormous Twelfth Night cake among her papers at Mount Vernon. The recipe called for 40 eggs, four pounds of sugar, and five pounds of dried fruit. It wasn't until the mid-1800s that Christmas became the primary holiday of the season in America, and at that point, Twelfth Night celebrations all but disappeared."

I love the idea of sharing a celebration with the orchards and the birds who live there.  Maybe I'll share my wassail with my bougainvillea trees, which seem to be blooming beautifully this morning.

The last stanza's of Jan Richardson's poem moved me this morning, and I'll probably think about it often as I move through today and tomorrow:

"Do not expect

to return
by the same road.
Home is always
by another way
and you will know it
not by the light
that waits for you

but by the star
that blazes inside you
telling you
where you are
is holy
and you are welcome
here."

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 Eve: The Path We Make by Dreaming

Here we are, at the 12th day of Christmas, the day before Epiphany.  Tradition has it that we should take down our Christmas decorations today, to avoid bad luck in the new year.  Hmm.  I've always waited until Epiphany--although if I'm being honest, I often wait until my husband does it, and he usually takes care of the undecorating on Epiphany.

We will likely take down the Christmas decorations tomorrow.  We're having some family members over on Sunday, and we'll need to do some cleaning, which will likely inspire us to put away the seasonal stuff too.

On Jan Richardson's blog post, I read about an interesting tradition, Women's Christmas, which is traditionally celebrated on Epiphany:  "In some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is celebrated as Women's Christmas. Originating in Ireland, where it is known as Nollaig na mBan, Women's Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a break and celebrate together at the end of the holidays."

She also includes a link to a free download of her Retreat for Women's Christmas, which includes  readings, art, questions--a great resource if you're in the mood for a contemplative treat with a spiritual theme, all done in a wonderful way.

She creates a retreat each year, and the theme for this year's retreat is "The Path We Make by Dreaming."  I love that theme, and I look forward to having time to explore the materials she's created.

May this be the week-end that we see the visions that we seek, even if they twinkle at us from a distance so very far away.  May we have the courage to move towards that vision, even if it requires a great journey or a different kind of leap of faith.

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 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.

Epiphany Stars: A Follow-Up Story

On the first Sunday of January, my church celebrated Epiphany, and I was the one leading the service.  For years, I had read about Epiphany stars--a practice early in the year, where participants choose a star with a word on it, and that word guides them through the year.

I decided to abandon the dark sermon about Herod and modern refugees and to go with Epiphany stars.  On Saturday, I cut out the stars, wrote words on them, and put them in a bag I got from the Mepkin Abbey gift shop.  In church the next day, the experience went well.  For more, see this blog post.

A few weeks ago, a woman stopped me on her way out of church.  She told me that she keeps the star that she drew out of the bag on the dashboard of her car.  The star instructed her to "look up."  She told me that she's glad that the star is there to remind her.

I knew the woman, but we're not church friends--in other words, she didn't have a motivation to find the experience a good one.  I was pleased to hear that the experience was meaningful for her, and meaningful beyond Sunday morning.

I thought about how I had been hesitant to choose that direction for Epiphany.  I was reminded of my own star:

I'm also aware that I was able to say yes because I knew that the service was Jan. 1, a day with sparser attendance--and attendance might also be impacted by everyone's knowledge that our pastor would be on vacation.  I was able to take a risk with a different kind of sermon, a more interactive sermon, because the day was going to be different anyway.

But I'm glad I said yes to that Epiphany service.  I'm going to try to use that as a reminder to say yes more often.

Epiphanies Past and Present

Today is the feast day of the Epiphany, a holiday that celebrates the arrival of the wise men who have been studying the stars when they notice a new one.  They travel, looking for the one whom the star heralds.  They consult a ruler, Herod, and they inadvertently trigger Herod's jealousy, which sets into motion a series of horrible events, the murder of every child under the age of two in Bethlehem.  Jesus isn't there--in a dream, Joseph has been warned to flee with his wife and baby, and he obeys.

I've been looking through my Epiphany posts for the last few years, and I am struck by how much my life has changed.  In 2020, after writing a paragraph where I talked about how I wished I could keep Epiphany,  I wrote, "Instead I will go to my workplace where I will get ready for the term that starts on Wednesday, do some accreditation writing, and then have a New Student Orientation. I'm tired just thinking about it. There's shopping to be done (supplies and food for New Student Orientation) and paperwork--lots and lots of paperwork. Sigh."

Ah, the good old days, before that school was bought by people who changed the academic calendar and severed most of us from our jobs.  The good old days, before the pandemic, when that school still had students and faculty and the hope of increasing enrollment.

This year, I am in a very different place.  I thought about being at seminary and how strange it is that we have no Epiphany worship today.  Then I wondered if the National Cathedral might be having worship this evening.  Did I want to be out and about this evening after going downtown to catch the Vermeer exhibit which leaves after Jan. 8?  

Lo and behold, the Cathedral is offering a noon Epiphany worship with the Eucharist--hurrah!  So I've rearranged my schedule.  I'll walk to the Cathedral for the service, then I'll walk to the Metro stop that's an hour away.  I'll head downtown, and if all goes well (which it should), I'll still have plenty of time for the Vermeer exhibit.

Let me close this post by remembering past Epiphanies that revolved around one of my favorite poems I've ever written.  In 2019, I had been listening to news stories about various immigration crises, and I thought about the 3 Wise Men and if they had come to the U.S. Border.  I made this sketch:

And then I started thinking about a poem with multiple strands:  Epiphany, a current 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.  Ultimately, this poem arrived, and Sojourners published it in 2020.  It's a perfect fit.



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.

The Feast Day of the Epiphany

Today is the Feast Day of the Epiphany, when we celebrate 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. Often, the Epiphany season also includes the baptism of Jesus, which in some Gospels, can include a descending dove and God telling us that Jesus is God's son, with whom God is well pleased.


Note that God is well pleased even before Jesus has done a thing. For those of us who suffer self-loathing because we feel we're not doing enough and we're not living up to our full potential, perhaps we could take this lesson and back off a little.

There are so many ways to celebrate.  Many of us will go to church, where we will contemplate the arrival of the wise men or the baptism of Jesus.  A year ago, I created this meditation with photos for Epiphany.

There are ways to celebrate at home too.  It's so rare that this feast day falls on a week-end day, which opens up so many possibilities.  We could bake 3 Kings Bread.  For a simple, relatively healthy, no kneading version, see this recipe with photos in this blog post.

If you want more suggestions for ways to celebrate this holiday today, this post at my creativity blog will give you some ideas.

Many of us will celebrate this feast day by getting ready to return to work tomorrow.  Some of us will celebrate by putting away the Christmas decorations.

But before we let go of Christmas entirely, let's take a bit more time to savor the season.  Have one last cookie or cup of Christmas tea.  Think about how you will continue to infuse sweetness into your post-holiday life.  Think about the twinkly lights and the star that is so central to the Christian Christmas story.  How can you get more light into your life?  What star waits for you to notice and to follow its guidance?  What gifts do you need?  What gifts does the world need from you?

Happy Epiphany!  May it be a year of light and a distant star that brings us to Good News.

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.

Plough Monday and Blessing the Tools of Our Work

I saw a post from Eleanor Parker about today:  "Today is Plough Monday, the first Monday after Epiphany. This was traditionally the first day back at work after the Christmas holiday, and it was celebrated by blessing tools of work - a way of starting off the new year well, but also an excuse for some last Christmas festivity!"

My first thought is that she had dates wrong; it feels like it's been a small ice age since Epiphany.  But I knew better--she's an expert on medieval times and customs, after all.  Then I looked at the calendar:  a week ago was Epiphany, so today is, indeed, the first Monday after Epiphany.

I love the idea of blessing the tools of our work as we settle into our post-holiday rhythms.  I love the idea of blessing the tools of our work periodically, since work takes up so much of most of our lives.  Most of us would be blessing electronics, and I do love this laptop where I do so much work.

As I got to campus last week, on Monday which was Epiphany, I said a prayer for all of us:  faculty gathered for a day of meeting, training, and eating before the semester started, a prayer for the students who were getting ready for class, a prayer for all the support staff who make our lives better.

I would like to be the kind of person who offers these kinds of prayers at the start of every day, at every arrival and departure.  It's much easier to be aware of these kinds of prayer opportunities as the calendar changes, as semesters start, as we look back at how our ancestors lived.

Epiphany Prep: Stars

Tomorrow, my church will celebrate Epiphany.  I'm in charge of the one service.  For weeks now, I've thought I might preach on the flight into Egypt.  But this week, I've changed my mind.

In the past few days, I've seen lots of references to Epiphany stars--and there's still time to do this!

This post is the one that inspired me.  So today, I'll make a bag full of stars.  I've found a template, and I'll cut out stars and write a variety of words, one per star.  Instead of a basket, I'll pass a bag (from the gift shop at Mepkin Abbey!) around the congregation--people can reach in and grab a star.

How will we use our stars?  I will suggest that we use them as a way to focus on what God might be trying to say to us.  The wise men in the story spent years, perhaps decades, staring at the sky.  For those of us who are less patient, maybe the star from the paper bag from Mepkin Abbey will give a direction.

The word Epiphany also means an insight, often a piercing insight, a life-changing insight.  What epiphanies do we need for 2017?

I am guilty of wanting the Holy Spirit to speak in grand gestures, like a full scholarship to a seminary with living expenses covered too, not in gentle whispers.  I worry that if I want a grand gesture, the Holy Spirit will get my attention by way of the grand gesture of unemployment or something horribly negative.  My earthly spirit clearly doesn't fully trust the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps that's why the Holy Spirit tends to work in nudges and whispers.  Most of us are skittish animals, after all, easily spooked.
We've had weeks of stories of people of all sorts may be led by a star or by angel directives or choirs of heavenly hosts appearing in the sky.  But there are other ways.  Wise people year after year are led  by that steady voice that tells them to look where they haven't found success before.  I believe God speaks to us through our yearnings. 

Many people have had great success from having a word that gives focus to the year--the juxtaposition of Epiphany and New Year's Day seems fortuitous this year.  This year, my spiritual resolution/intention/goal will be led by the star that I draw out of a bag from Mepkin Abbey--and I'll let us all know how it goes.

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."

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.

Wandering Wise Men and the Stars They Follow

I have been greatly intrigued, and at times highly amused, by the Internet meme of the 3 plastic wise men and a camel who make their way across modern landscapes.  The wise men look like children's toys, and upon doing some "research," I've found that they're made by Playmobil or Fisher Price.  I have no idea how many people are doing this.  I haven't participated this year, but perhaps in later years.

Until this morning, I didn't realize how many people were doing this project as a reaction to the Elf on a Shelf--a way to have a daily practice that's whimsical but doesn't involve Santa.

I wonder how many wandering wise men practitioners think about the problematic aspects of the 3 kings.  With Epiphany falling on a Sunday this year, I wonder if churches will talk about the troubling parts of the story.

If we take the Bible literally, it's hard to make this part of the story fit with later parts of the savior story.  How far ahead of the birth did the star in the east start shining?  How long does it take to walk that distance?  Did the magi arrive at the manger too?  If Herod slaughtered all the children under the age of 2, why do we have no historical record of that slaughter?  What happened to the valuable presents in the later years?

Even if we don't take the Bible literally, the story presents difficulties for modern sensibilities.  What do we do with the fact that these wise men are an ancient version of astrologers?  What type of ethnic minority are they?  Do they come from Persia or from Africa?  Why does that old hymn say that they're from the Orient?  Do we all remember that Orient and Oriental are no longer the preferred terms as they imply something a bit ugly?

If I was preaching this Sunday, I'd take one of several approaches.  The classic, non-political approach would be to remind us all of the importance of regular practice.  The wise men notice a new star because they are studying the skies week after week.  Or I might talk about how sometimes the Good News comes via angel choirs in the sky, but for some of us, the message is more subtle.  I use the story as a reminder to look up more often, to take in the larger vistas.

We could talk about how Divine messages can often send us on unexpected journeys.  Or maybe we want to talk about gifts; we could talk about the symbolic meanings of the gifts that we traditionally associate with the magi:  frankincense, gold, and myrrh. 

If I was in a daring mood and preaching epiphany, I might remind people of the civil disobedience aspects of the story:  the ruler of the land sends the magi on a spying mission and commands them to return to report to him.  They disobey.  Their disobedience, alas, does not overcome evil; Herod continues to sow chaos and bloodshed.

Or perhaps I'd talk about the refugee aspects of the story.  The magi come, and the Holy Family must flee Herod's murderous jealousy.  Herod is not the first despot to create a refugee crisis, and we can be sure that the many refugee crises that we see in our modern age will not be the last.  What does it mean that our savior was a refugee?

I have preached the Epiphany message before, and I went with the idea of Epiphany stars (more in this post and this one).  Later in the year, I had one church member tell me that she found it meaningful for more than just one Sunday. 

But my brain keeps coming back to those wandering wisemen.  I like the dailiness of arranging the toys.  I wonder if we could do something similar with other seasons--a Holy Spirit nudge!

Poetry Monday for Epiphany: "Border Lands"

Today is the feast day of Epiphany.  Not for the first time do I wish that I worked in a setting that celebrated these feast days.  I have a vision of having special Epiphany events--the eating of the 3 Kings Bread, for example.

Instead I will go to my workplace where I will get ready for the term that starts on Wednesday, do some accreditation writing, and then have a New Student Orientation.  I'm tired just thinking about it.  There's shopping to be done (supplies and food for New Student Orientation) and paperwork--lots and lots of paperwork.  Sigh.

Let me cheer myself up by remembering last year, when I wrote what would be one of my favorite poems of the year.  I had been listening to news stories about various immigration crises, and I thought about the 3 Wise Men and if they had come to the U.S. Border.  I made this sketch:

And then I started thinking about a poem with multiple strands:  Epiphany, this 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.  Ultimately, this poem arrived, and Sojourners just published it in the latest issue.  It's a perfect fit.



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.

The Feast of the Epiphany

Today is the last day of the Christmas season, the Feast of the Epiphany. This day is the one where we celebrate the visit of the Magi, the Wise Men who come to visit the Baby Jesus.

On The Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor gives us some background:

"In the Eastern Church, which includes the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches, today is a general celebration of God's becoming man. It includes celebrating a whole host of things: the birth of the baby Jesus, the revelation of Jesus' divinity to the rest of the world — like to the Magi visiting from Persia — and most importantly in the East, Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River.

Centuries after the Eastern Orthodox Church began celebrating the Epiphany, the Roman Catholic Church decided to start doing so too. But for some reason, the Western Church really latched on to this image of the Persian priests bringing gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold to the infant Jesus, guided from their homeland of Iran by a shining star. The Magi are mentioned only in Matthew's Gospel and he never specified how many magi there were — just that there were three gifts."

Today is a good day to think about wisdom, about gifts, about the shadow side of this story, which is Herod, who stews over this vision that the wise men have given him. We might think about all the ways we turn good news into bad, of the ways that we stew over our thoughts and turn them into poisonous actions. We might make an Epiphany resolution to watch our thoughts carefully and to track our actions even more carefully.

If you haven't already undecorated your house, today might be the day to do that, to transition back to the scrap of ordinary time that we have before the penitential season of Lent begins.

You might play the Christmas music one last time and take a contemplative moment. You might think about the Christmas season we just enjoyed (or did you just endure it?) and plan for next year. What didn't you do, and what did you wish you had done more of?

You might shop the post-Christmas sales, like the wise man or woman that you are. Now is a great time to buy Christmas cards for next year, to buy Christmas-scented candles, to pick up a bargain.

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 Christmas 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.

An Epiphany Meditation

Today is the Feast Day of the Epiphany, the last day of the Christmas season. This day is the one where we celebrate the visit of the Magi, the Wise Men who come to visit the Baby Jesus.  The Magi don’t miss the message of the star. They show up to do the work. They’re not lazing about hoping that something reveals itself. They are present and receptive to the message of the skies. They participate in the discovery of the message.

We might prefer the blaze of angel light, the night sky disrupted, the message plain and clear.  We might wish that we didn't have to rely on a lonely star, beaming its speck of light from such a great distance.  The wise men remind us of the Advent message, the value of watching and waiting and staying alert.

Too often, with both our Christmas story and our Epiphany story, we stay with the happy elements:  we focus on the baby in the manger, the arrival of the wise men, the happy crowd, all assembled.  We forget what happened next.  The journey of the Magi plunges the family into chaos, into flight, into refugee status.  These stories are not all sweetness and light.  Herod feels so threatened that he slaughters every boy in Bethlehem who is under the age of 2.  Forewarned, Mary and Joseph take their baby and flee for their lives.

Today is a good day to ponder the shadow side of this story, which is Herod, who stews over this vision that the wise men have given him. We might think about all the ways we turn good news into bad, of the ways that we stew over our thoughts and turn them into poisonous actions. We might make an Epiphany resolution to watch our thoughts carefully and to track our actions even more carefully.  We might resolve to help refugees who are still being plunged into chaos by the actions of despots.

Today is also a good day 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 Christmas 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.

A Poem for Epiphany

As I look back through my poetry folder, I'm surprised to see how many Epiphany poems I have.  I've always found the liturgical year and holidays to be fruitful places for inspiration, and Epiphany is particularly rich.  You've got a new star, wise people from a distant land, a murderous dictator, a baby whose story we already know, and various types of knowledge (observation, dreams, ancient information).

I often read T. S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" as Epiphany approaches; this year, Ross Douthat posted a reading which I like even better than my own internal voice reading the poem.  That reading sent me back to my poetry folder, and today I'm posting this poem which draws inspiration from Eliot's.  It was written about 10 years ago, and this appearance is its first publication.

Dispensations Old and New



The old dispensation cannot save
you now. Hard and bitter agony.
Eat stones for breakfast, crack
your teeth before sunrise,
it makes no difference.
Suckle the camels who cannot eat cactus,
wait for the silken girls with their sherbet,
No one will sing to you.

You must listen to a different song.
Plug your ears against the angel chorus.
Put away the mandolin and fiddle.
Listen for the star’s quiet plainsong.
Follow the single note.

Leave death’s twilight kingdom.
Enter the deep midnight,
the place you hoped
would be a temporary sojourn.
Learn the new landscape with only
your fingertips for navigation.