Author: dianewoodrow

This post can also be found on https://godspacelight.com/2021/01/05/epiphany-eve/ along with many other great articles and posts.

Today is the day before Epiphany. The day before the church calendar celebrates the arrival of the Wise Men visiting Jesus. Some days before a big day are marked – like New Year’s Eve or Christmas Eve. But some days aren’t. The day just happens.

I wonder how those Wise Men felt on the night before they found this king they’d seen predicted in the stars. I’m thinking that on Epiphany Eve they were feeling a bit confused. They made their way to Herod’s palace and got a cryptic message from him as he tried to cover up for the fact that he didn’t know a king had been born in his province. I’m sure they were pondering their encounter with this man and his words. Herod, even though portrayed in church tradition, as a tyrant, was actually a great leader. He build extensively, not just palaces for himself, but aqueducts, theatres and public buildings, and generally raised the prosperity of the land. I think the Wise men would have been perplexed that this leader, who was well connected through the known world, did not know of this king that they had seen predicted in the stars that would change the course of history.

Not much is known about the backstory of the Wise men. No one knows for sure where they came from or what status they held in their own land. We don’t even know how many of them there were or how big a retinue they came with. All they get is a handful of verses in gospel of Matthew and one day in Anglican and Catholic church traditions to look into them.

Our church has a tradition associated with Epiphany where letters are chalked on the church door. Last year they read – 20+C+M+B+20. The initials C, M, B are for the traditional names of the Three Kings. Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, but also in Greek translation can stand for “Christus Mansionem Benedicat,” which means “May Christ bless this dwelling.” . But it is a bit like a code. Until you are in with the “in crowd” you haven’t got a clue what those letters mean. But I think this is so relevant for the coming of the Wise men.

The Wise men weren’t part of the in crowd, either in the land of Palestine or within the Jewish tradition. They were as much outsiders as the shepherds. The shepherds were despised within their community but at least they knew how the community worked, whereas the Wise men, because of their wealth would have been viewed with respect and would have been honoured, but they were on the outside of something they did not understand. The person they had expect to support and lead them, Herod, had let them down and had sent them on their way with a vague description of where to go and what to expect, but had left them to it. They were camped at the end of a small nondescript town where Herod had sent them. I wonder how they felt?

So today, on Epiphany Eve, imaging being in your expensive Bedouin tent [imagine your equivalent of]. You’re with your friends but you’re not sure where you are going. You’re not at the place you expected to be. You also know it is one of those places where everyone knows everyone. You can tell that from looking at it. But the sign that brought you here, this big star, is still telling you this is the way walk in it. Personalise it and think about how many times you’ve stood on the edge of something you don’t quite know what it was but you know you have to keep pressing forward.

We are just five days into 2021 with the US about to enter a new presidency, the UK being out of Europe with the deal we have to now make work, with the vaccine being given to more and more people and things lifting but lockdowns continuing, not knowing what the world economy will look like and the East saying they’re doing alright. For many there are exams and schooling to ponder how it will work out, babies being born, weddings happening, futures out there waiting to happen, but still there is waiting and not knowing, but we all have to walk forward.

As we didn’t know this time last year what this Covid virus would really mean to the world so the Wise men did not really know what awaited them in Bethlehem. But they followed, and they waited, and they arrived, and they gave their gifts, even though that must have seemed weird. But just for today they waited on the outskirts and pondered the journey they had been on and what their destination would look like. So at times we also stand on the edge and wait and ponder but we must place our hand in God’s and keep on keeping on.

This poem seems more appropriate this year than it has for a long time:

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.

And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East. “

by Minnie Louise Haskins

So let us walking into the unknown, find God’s hand and walk gladly no matter what comes this year.

I hope we are kinder to you, 2021, than we have been to 2020. We have spoken harshly about the last year when all it did was tell its story. In fact it did all it had to do. In January we cried out, “2020 the time of perfect vision” and then we did not like what it showed us so we cried “begone”. Yet it could not go until its time was spent.

2020 showed us things in our world that we need to change – the fragility of our health service, of our government having to make sound-bites and snap decisions. In fact it showed that most of our government is out of touch with regular people, not understanding that there are too many that, once their pay-checks decrease by a small amount they are plunged into poverty. We saw this with the food handouts by Unicef, the increase in foodbanks, having to have a footballer tell those in power that children needed feeding even in the school holidays. We were showed the deep held racism in our land, the class divides, the divisions of the principalities that make up the United Kingdom. We also saw the support that there was between people and the care as communities came together. We also saw how selfishly we all were as we bemoaned not being able to go where we pleased and do what we wanted. We realised how much we needed each other and how much we do miss our friends and family. We saw how much we compare ourselves to other nations and ran down our leaders and then wonder why they do not perform and were always working to try to please the crowd.

All these things and much, much more 2020 and its mandate, Perfect Vision, were revealed over the last 365 days. So why did we bemoan it? What did it do wrong? For me I would like to honour 2020, to say that yes there were too many things I did not like in it, too many losses, changes, deaths and more, but also there were good things, great things, deep and amazing changes that went on. Can we say 2021 will be different? I do not yet know what its mandate it. But all I can say is that I would like to be able to honour it when it has spent its 365 days with me and see both the good and the bad, the things I can control and the things I cannot, and know that every day things are unfolding as things have unfolded over all the years since man first stood tall and walked this earth.

So bless you 2020 and may you rest in peace. Welcome 2021 and let us walk together and just see what will occur.

At dawn, especially this time of year, I hum the line from Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “I Believe in Father Christmas”

I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn

and I saw him and through his disguise

I’ve often thought, especially around the other lyrics, that it meant a time of disillusionment – being coerced into believing about Father Christmas, virgin birth, etc but this morning, whilst pottering round the park with the dog and watching the amazing colours pushing through the clouds I felt differently.

We put so much whitewash around the Christmas story, we dumb it down and make it “user friendly”. What if we could look clearly at the new light of dawn and truly see the magic of Jesus birth, of God coming down to walk amongst us? What would happen to each one of us if we saw through the disguise? What difference would it make if we truly woke up and really looked with open eyes and really saw through the glitter and tinsel, the children’s nativity, the presents, food and drink, and truly saw what it was really all about? And that revealing would be so very different to each one of us. God is not a one size fits all, thankfully.

My thoughts and prayers for each person who reads this, and for those who don’t but that I know, is that they can see through the disguise, the illusion, that gets placed around Christmas and that God placed around Christmas. See through the disguise and come to meet the real God, real to each one of us, but each one of us only sees a facet of that diamond, and too often we have been trying to get others to see the side we see instead of hearing about the side they see.

So as we all do something different this Christmas to what we would normal do, and for us who’ve had to have plans changed suddenly because of these new rules, my prayer is we don’t miss seeing through the disguise and seeing the real meaning of God coming down to earth to walk amongst us. So …

I wish you a hopeful christmas

I wish you a brave new year

All anguish pain and sadness

Leave your heart and let your road be clear

“Emerson, Lake & Palmer – I Believe In Father Christmas lyrics | LyricsFreak” [Found 24th Dec 2020]

I’ve been doing some writing exercises with Writers HQ as a bit of advent fun. The other day we were encouraged to write “iconic obituaries”. I pondered and then thougth that as we’d lost our mad rabbit over the summer I’d do an obituray for him. I don’t think we do them for our animals often enough.

Archie – born Easter 2011 died 23^rd July 2020.

In the unprecedented year of 2020 Archie decided life was too good to keep on digging so had stretched himself out on between the wire fencing that encircled the fuchsia bush, which being encased in wire had grown to be a fuchsia tree, and the fencing that encased the bush that he had destroyed when he had eaten through the main tuber.

It had been a long and successful career of tunnel building, though as far as everyone knew there was no purpose to any of it. Many had expected him to die within one of his tunnels when it had collapsed on him, but he had chosen a warm sunny day and had let his breath leave him in the warm summer sun. Archie had started life living indoors but had been finally been banished to live outside after chewing through the telephone wire when someone was on a call. The chewing of the TV cable had been kept secret from most. He had also enjoyed wallpaper stripping but because of his height, or lack of, he would never have progressed to being a decorator.

He was buried within one of his own tunnels, and a memorial herb garden will be placed above him. He leaves behind a confused dog who, for a while, could smell him but not find him, and an overflowing food waste bin. Archie will be missed by all who knew him.

This “Gains” post is to follow on from the “Loss” post, which is unusual for me to remember to do the follow ups 🙂

What have I gained this year whilst I have cast off so much? Some strange things I must say. Probably like many I’ve learned more about myself and what I am like than I have done in any other year. I have discovered that I try to keep myself busy rather than do what I know I should do. For instance – I know that I am a writer, which has been proven in the fact that I’m having a children’s book published next year. [That is definitely a wait till it is in print before I share more] but I don’t make time for it. In fact I do my best to make sure I don’t have time to write – or rather I allot time to do some actual writing but don’t put aside time for those things that are needed to build up to writing – thinking time and reading time.

I will excuse myself for not having written War and Peace or similar because, as many writers are saying, it has been very hard to concentrate. But instead of giving myself space I took on things to fill my head. And some to stop me feeling guilty about not doing anything. As I’ve mentioned in another post, there is a website for women over 50 called “RestLess” filled with loads of things to do, as though doing nothing is a sin. I’ve a lovely young friend who is struggling with resting too because, again she’s been brought up to think you should be busy.

So I would love to say that one of my big gains has been lots of time but it has not because I’ve filled it up with other things. But I have learned a bit about who I am, and that is that I’m afraid to give myself the time to just sit on the couch and ponder. So I’m trying to release myself from many things so that I can find time to sit and think and write.

Mind you another of my gains is the couch. Ok this sounds silly. When we moved into this house I was so grateful to have my study, which was going to be the place where I wrote. I do love my study and it is nice to have somewhere that I can keep the stuff that is just mine. But when I fell off the horse and hurt my ribs the only place I could sit comfortably was on the couch. So I spent those first 2 weeks led on the couch with tables postioned around me with books and laptop, pens and coffee cup, close at hand. But then I realised I like the living room. It had been a room that until the begining of October I had kept closed during the day and would only let people in when it was evening. I would struggle when we had friends staying and they would take their morning coffee into the living room. But now I go into the living room when I first get up, put on the fairy lights and do some yoga, then leave the door ajar, go out and walk the dog and come back to carry on doing in the living room. I am loving looking out the window and seeing people walking by, loving the light, the space. It’s changed.

So one of my big gains is letting go of the need for my special space and making my space special in the family space. Who knows how long I’ll stay down here but for now this is my space too.