Dear
friends,
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light.
To remember this powerful gift of
light, from God, to God’s creation, we can choose
to celebrate one more Christmas season event.
It’s an event that you might
miss if someone didn’t explain to you what you might
otherwise be missing.
This
last piece of the Christmas pie is called Epiphany.
Epiphany.
And
here I had intended to write about Holiday depression.
Glad
I came to my senses. I’d much rather tell you about
Epiphany.
Epiphany
happens each year on January 6.
I’m
taking the day off and planning a special celebration.
That’s
one reason why I like Epiphany.
Here’s
another: The word, though only middling in length, can grow
on you.
First,
the roots.
Epiphany
comes from the ancient Greek and literally means to
manifest or to show.
OK,
so I was taught to avoid trotting out the Greek and Hebrew,
because no one but me would know or care. Couldn’t
resist. I remember how excited (really) I would get when
a teacher or a preacher would write on the blackboard or
say in the sanctuary one of the ancient words, with correct
spelling, correct pronunciation, and a crisp definition.
For me it’s like looking under the hood of a classic
car or seeing inside the cupboards of a famous chef.
Epiphany.
The word also carries the sense of a sudden increase in
understanding, based on something that you see.
Sight
becoming insight in a heartbeat.
Epiphany
is the day when we remember the Three Wise Men who saw the
Christ child and gave him gifts. Epiphany, indeed, is the
12th Day of Christmas.
We
call an experience an epiphany when we see that inner lightbulb
go on and say Oh!!!
Someone
somewhere – some poet, I think – says something
like this:
An
epiphany is a sudden thrust inward.
Someone
else, and I can’t remember who it was, says somewhere
that there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Sounds a lot like something Shakespeare would say, maybe
in King Lear. Let it go. Still, it reminds me of what Lear’s
faithful servant What’s His
Name says to him, in the wind and rain as
Lear in his towering majesty and stupidity has dismissed
him for telling truth – see better, Lear! A while
later, Lear’s daughter plucks out his eyes. A while
later, still, he finally sees the truth.
That’s
epiphany. The sight beyond sight, which we only can see
in the mind.
When
the Three Wise Ones saw the baby Jesus they suddenly knew
he was special, precious, and powerful, and that he had
more of these traits than did they. These mighty ones, whom
we also sometimes call the We
Three Kings of Orient Are, suddenly knew
they were in the presence of real royalty. Takes one to
know one, I guess. They bent the knee who to that point
knew no equal but one another, equal in their might and
pride and wisdom. Like three snooty peas in a pod. Everyone
else could see that three in one pod was absurd. But they
suddenly, and finally, saw all things for what they were,
and they suddenly, and finally, saw themselves for who they
really were, and they bent the proud and kingly knee. It
must have hurt at first, to suddenly bend what had never
to that point been bent for another person.
By
this time, you either are having a grand time along with
me as we muse on the beauty of language, or you have ripped
up this letter and muttered a few choice words of your own
choosing. However, some of you are at the choice point,
not sure whether to move on or to continue.
Continue.
You will see things that will save the day, and you, too.
Epiphany
means seeing what you have stared at day after day and month
after month and year after year without seeing what you’ve
been looking at. I was a passenger a few weeks ago when
my wife and I took a ride up to the Erie Canal on a day
off. I’ve made that trip a dozen times in the year
2002 alone, but as a rider instead of a driver I saw so
much more –
