Epiphany
Originally uploaded by mario bellavite.
6th January is epiphany. Also kmown for taking down Christmas trees for recycling, putting away house and garden Christmas decorations, changing the seasonal or nature table scenes in our homes, gardens or churches to include the magi, the wise ones, the sign seeker astrologers who don't make it into the nativity story by Luke in the Bible but are in the other nativity story offered by Matthews gospel in the Bible. I have a toddler and he has been singing we three kings of orient are for weeks now. For him the cast of Characters for the happy birthday celebration of baby Jesus must include the 3 kings as well as the donkey and the innkeeper, in spite of Luke not writing them in. My 3 year old is already playing within the stories of Jesus and his natality, his sacredness, his being in the stinkeyrooney straw with poo from the animals. His nursery all became nativity characters, he was gifted 3 Christmas stories of Jesus birth. All with innkeeper, animals including donkey Mary is said in our mythology to ride on to Bethlehem, and shepherds and kings...it's just not possible to separate out all the versions we have of the story with the visit of the magi, the wise ones and the cultural myths we stongly adhere to. I am not complaining. I am all for ,icing up bible, culture, myth and storytelling. It makes faith more interesting to me and for me when I do too. But my little one was most out put when he observed twice this Christmas season that the window sticker nativity story we had did not have an innkeeper and neither did a giant knitted nativity we saw at his mamas church. He wondered where the innkeeper was. I didn't have an answer for him. The significance of the innkeeper this year was because his good friend from nursery played that part and there was a significant disruption to her life each time she had guests knocking on the door at all times of the day and night making wanting to make an appearance at the bedside of the mama and christ child. The the insights began to appear too...my little one wanted his friends included in the happy birth-day Jesus story because he has just started to make friends and they are important to him...perhaps like most of us he didn't see himself appearing and making manifest in the scene. It is because of him that I am re reading the gospel stories and re reading them aloud with my little one so he hears, sees and imagines himself and others he knows, loves and cares about into the stories too. I have found this spiritual practice life changing and faith altering. It shakes up what some teach and believe about the bible and about the divine sacred one too. I no longer believe the bible is finished, complete or without error. I also include in the nativity stories the saints our dandelion community have got to know through advent st. Lucy, st, Catherine, st. Nicholas and include them also at the birth scenes, early hours and weeks of the life of the newborn mum, dad and Christ child...this lectio divina approach to Christian spirituality is rich in prayer, connection with the divine life in and around us, abounding in imagination and nourishing our deep faith traditions of ancient breath in our bones, birth and bibles beyond the only words on the page. I hope this coming new year will be an epiphany for you, rich in holy wisdom, brimming with new manifestations of the life you yearn for deeply and bringing about a shift in consciousness and action for more and more peace with justice, water, food, shelter and love for all beings of mother earth.
