EPIPHANY, January 6, 2025:
Enter Dreamer, one daughter, three grandkids, and yours truly . . .
PLUS . . . a visitation. No, not the Magi.
We began our day scouting Christmas Eve treats the children left out, last month, for the neighborhood wildlings. The leftovers were re-scattered close to the house.
Then we shivered our way to the front stoop where Dreamer, by turns, hoisted each child high. Following an ancient custom, they chalked the door lintel with the new year’s numerals and three letters: 20 + C + M + B + 25.
The letters represent three wise strangers from afar, traditionally named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. They also coincide with the Latin phrase meaning “Christ, bless this house: Christus Mansionem Benedicat.
Our grandkids, ages eight and nine, must miss being carried. Grasping the chalk, they sure took their time writing. Who wouldn’t, held safely aloft by a gentle giant?
C + M + B . . . Dreamer might have thought “Courage, my biceps.”
Afterward, we made Star Cake for tea time. While it baked, the kids rushed to the bay window, hopping and chirping like sparrows.
A wild turkey! Eating their leftover seeds!
Looking up, I clattered a pan.
“Aanie,” they hissed, “SHHH!”
So I tiptoed over to join them.
It was Gladys, the Stalker. (So named by Dreamer.) The homely hen, seemingly exiled from her group, had lately been foraging solo.
Or was she a scout? A rafter of twenty-pounders can damage a house and yard. Should we have chased her away? We still had mixed feelings.
“Aanie, she LOVES my seeds!”
Sure enough, beak in overdrive, Gladys scratched and gobbled. Bark chips flew.
Bird-struck, the kiddos leaned closer, fogging the glass.
I witnessed the kind of rapt “celebration that roots us moment by moment in [a] deep watchful quiet that ushers us into the presence of God.” Sarah Clarkson wrote that, and her words capture the moment, a seeming fulfillment of our chalked prayer: Christ, bless this house.
Then the timer beeped.
Why didn’t I linger at the window? Too focused on icing and slicing. “Martha, Martha”—there I stood, messing with details, missing the true feast.
I love wholehearted celebrations, gladly embrace each fiddly, trivial detail. Post-party that day, our newly blessed home showed the chaos of a happy invasion. As well as the avian visitation.
During cleanup . . . another epiphany. So I made a decision. Next time, the cake can wait. As the old saying goes, What we behold . . . we become.
Why curtail magical moments with those I love?
Sometimes, I’m the turkey; sometimes, a child, surprised into breathless stillness.
Can we sustain wholehearted readiness to experience God’s love for the quirky? The potentially troublesome? If so, how?
And, in view of current events, how do we embody God’s love for those who are not like us?
Reclaiming Quiet, Sarah Clarkson.
Chalking the Door: “An Epiphany Tradition”
Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
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