EPIPHANY

Dear Harry,

Today is Thursday, January 6, the inglorious anniversary of that dreadful event in Washington DC last year--and trash day on our little little nest of streets in Laguna Beach. Out on my walk with Jake this morning early with nothing particular on my mind, I came upon an abandoned Christmas tree, left out to be hauled away with the rest of the "green" garbage--the garden debris, grass cuttings, and so on. It's always a sad sight to see a Christmas tree left out with the trash, but this one this morning happened to put me in mind of the approach of the Sunday that celebrates, in the Anglican calendar, the Feast of the Epiphany, marking the arrival of the three kings at the baby Jesus's crib. They had traveled far, the Bible story goes, bearing gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh to celebrate the arrival of a new "king" on earth. A snatch of the hymn we used to sing that Sunday came back to me: "We three Kings of Orient are/Bearing gifts we traverse afar/Field and fountain, moor and mountain/Following yonder start." I could not remember all the words, but I could hum the tune.

I had forgotten, to tell the truth, that January 6 is the actual, fixed date for Epiphany each year. How very odd, then, that I should be inspired by that abandoned tree to think these thoughts and write these words today! And how very much odder, now that I come to think of it, that it coincides with the day of the insurrection at the US Capitol last year--an event that could not be further in spirit from the traditional associations of epiphany: enlightenment, revelation, joyful recognition...

At your Rectory, the Sunday of, or following Epiphany was the day that Christmas officially ended for the family. The lights were unstrung from the tree and packed away until next Christmas, along with the decorative colored balls and tinsel and the star from the top of the tree. The tree was taken out to the side yard to await who knows what fate. It's a detail I've forgotten. But, yes, this was our annual ritual, and one that I remember well from my boyhood days.

Epiphany has come to mean something different to me these days, Harry, now that I no longer set much store by those Christian tales you taught me. It has its origin, certainly, in the story of the kings and their "discovery" of the Christ child, but these days it has come to mean the sudden, even blinding revelation of a previously unknown or unrecognized truth. We have all had those moments, surely, when some vital truth we had ignored or been avoiding hits us with all the power of its undeniable reality. You would recognize it in the blinding light from heaven that led to the apostle Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. 

Most frequently these epiphanies come to us at moments when we least expect them. But I have learned that I can also actually invite them. I have told you previously about my daily meditation practice, but I don't think I ever explained further that the kind of meditation I have learned and followed over the years is called "Vipassana", or Insight meditation. It's a way of using an unwavering attention on the breath as a way to create space in the mind for insights--epiphanies, really--to arise. I may start out with an intention, some problem or perplexity to resolve, not exactly "thinking" about it, but creating an awareness in that part of the "unthinking" mind that can process it without ratiocination while I sit. If I'm lucky--no, wrong; if I can create the stillness and silence in the mind for it to happen--that helpful insight will arise, allowing me to perceive the nature and perhaps the source of some cause of suffering in my life and, in recognizing, release it.

One of those "perplexities" that haunts me these days is precisely that which was manifest in that other January 6 event, the one that irrefutably revealed the bitter conflict at the heart of our national identity today. The memory troubles me deeply, daily, as does the distressingly persistent reality of that conflict. I sit in awareness of it in meditation and find some peace of mind in simply acknowledging it as a particular reality, a circumstance over which I myself have no control and can in no way resolve. I must be grateful for what I can get because, other than this, I confess that helpful insights are in short supply on this Epiphany day.

I'd be happy to hear the wisdom from your perspective on all this, Harry. But alas, that's not to be.

Signing off with my wishes for peace and love, Peter