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.