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Celebrating Epiphany

Celebrating Epiphany

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It’s a day in need of rescue, so that it isn’t buried at the bottom of an ornament box as we strip the tree and take it down. Or, since 2021, to separate it from the taint of the Capitol insurrection. 

In western Christianity, the Epiphany celebrates the visit of the magi to the infant Jesus. It marks the presentation of Jesus to the Gentiles, the revelation of his divine identity. It has also come to mean a sudden intuition, an aha moment. 

I’ve always appreciated this day, because it ends Christmas with a bang not a whimper, with a quest, a star and a sense of wonder. Despite the rich robes of the three kings, it has always reminded me that inspiration doesn’t lie in the grand occasions of life but can be folded into the lowliest of enterprises: sweeping the floor, raking the leaves, feeding the birds. 

We don’t know when the aha moment will strike, only that it will — if we pay attention. 

(The Adoration of the Magi, Edward Burne-Jones, courtesy Wikipedia)

 

Messiness and Joy

Messiness and Joy

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Today we celebrate the birthday of our aging canine, Copper. He’s over 17 in human years but can still cavort in the yard, terrify the toddlers and pounce for treats. 

He’s also a living, breathing lesson in patience, as he soils the carpet and gets stuck under chairs. But even addled and voiceless (as opposed to the old days, when he barked all the time) Copper is still Copper: loyal, loving and feisty. 

It’s hard to look at him and not see the future that awaits us all, but it’s also hard to look at him and not see the fun he has always brought our family, from his chaotic arrival giving us a merry chase down the street to his victory laps now when he makes it in from outside and celebrates with a run around the house.

When I look at Copper, I see life, with all its messiness and all its joy. 

(Photos: Claire Capehart)

Ten Years Later

Ten Years Later

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Ten years ago I wrote a post that was strangely prescient,  a post about guns early the morning of the Sandy Hook shooting, before that tragedy had happened.

In the post, I told the story of a shopping expedition the night before and how it was difficult to find anyone to help me in the large sporting goods store — difficult until I wandered into the firearms department.

You can analyze it any way you will. You can pin it on our frontier mentality, on the myth of rugged individualism with which our nation has become entangled. You can bring politics in there too, although ten years ago we weren’t as polarized as we are now. 

But no matter how you attempt to explain it, there are 20 six- and seven-year-olds who never went home that horrible day, who never grew up, graduated from high school and got their first jobs. Families shattered, lives upended. 

We’ve endured legions of school shootings and other massacres since then, including Uvalde, where almost as many children lost their lives as at Sandy Hook. Ten years later, the tears that have fallen could fill another ocean. But still we do nothing.

Urban Campfire

Urban Campfire

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It’s been a while since I sat around a campfire, but I did last night … in the middle of D.C. That it was part of a professional association meeting, that it was around a fire pit, that the occasional helicopter chugged overhead, didn’t seem to matter.

We were outside, the food was terrific, and the darkness and the crackling wood invited, if not ghost stories, at least some tales of journalistic hijinks and derring-do.

When I returned last evening I kept smelling something familiar, something comforting. It was the aroma of wood smoke in my hair. 

Waiting

Waiting

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A friend of mine wrote a one-act play about Advent called “Wait — It’s a Musical.” I always liked the title, the play on the word “wait.” I’m thinking of that play and that title today, on the first Sunday of the liturgical year. 

Every year the readings and sermons remind us that this is the season of watchful waiting, of calm preparation. Every year, this message must compete with tinsel and glitter and Mariah Carey belting out “All I Want for Christmas is You.” 

So I try, and somewhat succeed … for a week or two. But inevitably I’m pulled into the Christmas orbit. The shopping, the baking, the watching of holiday movies, one of which features, yes, “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

On an overcast November morning, it’s easy to feel the ancient longing, to hear the plainsong chant. But in a week or two, all bets will be off. 

Hardly Nothing

Hardly Nothing

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When a day is filled with as much cooking as yesterday was, the next day must be filled with, uh, pretty much nothing.

So how does one go about nothing, anyway? I’ve never been good at it. 

Walking, reading, more eating — hardly nothing, but sometimes they can feel like it when they’re going well. 

Quicksilver

Quicksilver

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It’s a day to feel grateful … and to ponder gratitude. One thing I’ve noticed is how mercurial it can be, how it can lie leaden in the heart until something happens — a friend calls, a baby laughs, the dough rises — and suddenly it flies up, a bird with fluttering wings. 

You try to catch it as it soars, but soon it’s gone again. Was it really there, or were you just imagining it? 

I choose to believe the former.  Its sightings may be sporadic, but its presence is real. 

Cranberries

Cranberries

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This morning I’m considering the cranberry, the perfect color of it, its tartness and completeness … and the way it slides beneath the knife when you try to slice and dice it. 

I’m considering the many berries I have to slice and dice … and potential ways around that. Food processor to the rescue!

It’s not even Thanksgiving and I’m already looking for ways to avoid cooking. This doesn’t bode well!

Turkey Time

Turkey Time

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The other night I had a funny anxiety dream. I was strolling through a store on Thanksgiving afternoon, casually browsing, picking up treats for the holiday meal, when I suddenly realized that I had not put the turkey in the oven. Not only that, but I had failed to bake the pumpkin pies the night before. 

As I frantically tried to figure out how to feed 20 people with no turkey or pie … I woke up. 

Ah yes, I thought groggily, a Thanksgiving anxiety dream.  When I came to full consciousness the next morning, I remembered my middle-of-the-night panic with a smile — but a jolt, too.

Yes, I was given a reprieve. But the big day is coming up. I hope I’m prepared!

(As close as I can come to a turkey photo: a turkey teapot photo!) 

Michael Gerson: 1964 — 2022

Michael Gerson: 1964 — 2022

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The world lost a great columnist and thinker yesterday when Michael Gerson died of cancer. Though I’m not an evangelical Christian Republican, I fond much to admire in Gerson’s columns, especially the ones about faith.  I was not the only one. The tributes are flowing in. 

In 2019 he spoke at Washington National Cathedral about his battle with depression, which had hospitalized him only weeks before. Though he credited medication for helping him turn the corner, he also spoke of “other forms of comfort,” including “the wild hope of a living God.” 

Those who believe, he said, know that life is not a farce but a pilgrimage, that hope can “grow within us, like a seed,” and “transcendence sparks and crackles around us … if we open ourselves to seeing it.”

Gerson didn’t just write about heavy stuff, though. Last summer he described his new Havanese, Jack, as a “living, yipping, randomly peeing antidepressant” and declared “I’ll never live without a dog again.” He never did — but now Jack, his family, friends and readers will have to live without Gerson.

I’ve written very few fan letters in my life, but last May I wrote one to Michael Gerson. He’d written a column that acknowledged a return of the cancer he knew would end his life, and I wanted to let him know that one reader, this reader, had taken much comfort from his words. He was kind enough to write me back. But it’s in his published words that I will remember him best, like this one from 2017:

If the resurrection is real, death’s hold is broken. …  It is possible to live lightly, even in the face of death — not by becoming hard and strong, but through a confident perseverance. Because cynicism is the failure of patience. Because Good Friday does not have the final word.