Another Epiphany

Epiphany was different this year. It’s a feast day of the Church which (in some traditions) focuses on the visit by the Wise men to honor the Christ child in Bethlehem. In “Church-speak” that translates into “the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ”. But it was different this year.

-          Ira needed a ride and a friend. Who is giving and who is in need of receiving sometimes gets confused. We split the difference and met some place near the middle.

-          Robby, who is frequently lost to us and the world went missing for a week. We went looking. Jimmy found him hiding in plain sight. We were happy and healed a little by that.

-          A call came in about Marty who was drunk-as-a-bicycle again and too stubbornly broken to accept anything other than “what-I-want”.  We were bruised a little by that.

-          Neil has little or nothing but healed us with his laughter and smiles. Ashley is on the fence. She wants to leave this wilderness for another one where the friends are less hit-and-run.

-          There was a late evening call from a dear soul fighting desperately for life and family. She called to say “thanks”.

Like those Wise guys from long ago we were compelled to go out by something inside us that cannot be understood or explained, only obeyed. It carried us along and we wandered into places and with people foreign to us and for a while became alien among our own. We were blessed.

Epiphany was different this year. We didn’t observe the feast as much as we were seized by it. It wasn’t a past revelation celebrated as much as God-present in flesh and blood.

Border Crossing

This year l tried to approach the season of Advent and Christmas as a “thin place”, a space where the border between heaven and earth is blurred. I’m not sure the experiment was a success but at least it helped me get through the prescribed “watching a waiting”. I am not a patient person.

Unfortunately the border crossing did not go according to plan (should have seen that coming). God did not show up on time or at the pre-arranged (and conveniently located) check point with required Tourist Visa in hand. The crossing was clandestine, occurring somewhere along the remote frontier. A few stragglers (what where they doing out there?) allegedly stumbled upon the scene. They acted as if they had deliberately been included in the event.

It makes no sense.  There was no limo or stretch SUV. No arrangements were made for military escort or photo ops with political dignitaries. State authorities and local vigilante patrols went on full alert due to unconfirmed reports that God was smuggled across the border by a poor immigrant couple (disguised as an infant!). The religious establishment was outraged by the total disregard for established protocol and blatant violations of liturgical tradition.

In the future, if I get the urge to “watch and wait” for God along the border I will go with radically different expectations.