Epiphany
Disoriented at church today.
I did not need to sit in my usual place under The Apostle Peter where my daughter could find me after Sunday School. She stayed home, so I was free to sit anywhere. So I walked further than Peter and sat under The Loaves and the Fishes. But immediately second guessed that as there was a spotlight on my head where my haircolor is growing out.
Then I noticed our Children’s Minister but whose husband preaches elsewhere and so she sits alone on non-Sunday School days. I chatted with her. I thought I could sit with her. But I didn’t. I wonder why I didn’t? Then the minister did not preach from the lecturn. He walked right down into the first three rows.
I was precariously close to the first three rows. Like in the top six, for goodness sake!
And he turned his back on us and preached to the choir. I thought that was prosaic of him. Preaching to the choir, you know…. And I wondered if it was a New Year’s Resolution of his – to preach from among the congregation.
Then he handed out a Longfellow poem and an Elliott poem in the bulletin – for no reason but for us to read it at home. Okay, now my head is spinning. There’s a piece of paper in the bulletin I don’t have to read responsively and the minister is right there!
So I looked for The Man in the Blue Jacket. I like to see him because he loves to be at church. He sings in a loud voice, he writes notes on his bulletin – not things to get at Home Depot, either, but notes about the homily – he knows everyone and smiles and volunteers during the Rummage Sale. Somehow thought if he were there then at least I would know I was in my right church and not in some alternate Universe, Through the Wardrobe Christ Church and the minister was a fawn maybe and I had no idea who I was but it wasn’t Lucy.
But The Man in the Blue Jacket wasn’t there.
So I sat through it, feeling just a little uncomfortable, just a little off kilter. I opened my BOCP, which I never do except for Prayers of the People, just to be sure the words this week were the same as the words last week.
I took communion from our recently ordained minister who wore her vestments in a different way, just to confuse me, thank you.
I even felt uncomfortable in my familiar brown church dress.
But the hymns were lovely and even not knowing them I was reassured when the man behind me sang loudly and off key and I was reminded that even if I felt off balance, just about all the Episcopalins in the world were saying these prayers thinking about Epiphany. And at least once in the history of history there were wise men, wise men, who were guided by an unfamiliar star to an unlikely place to see a thing too incredible to believe. And then were destined not to return the way they came. Lots of people were moved by that star, moved out of complacency and into unfamiliar action. Moved out of routine and into celebration. Moved, ultimately out of darkness and into Salvation.
Makes my discomfort seem pretty inconsequential. So, I felt a little disoriented. It’s in keeping with the season, after all. And, in the end, the singing man behind me was The Man in the Blue Jacket, he was there all the time, just not where I expected him to be.
I can remember another time when I felt the nagging uneasiness of incomprehensible change at Epiphany. My mother died on the 13th of January, 2001, seven days after epiphany. At her memorial, my sister used the metaphor of a constellation as comfort to us. Mother’s star had been a very bright one, one by which many of us were guided, or in some cases one from which we steered away. Now that star was gone and the entire constellation of our loving community seemed confusing and disoriented. In time, she said, new stars would be born and we would incorporate them, and in her absence, some stars that were not as bright might grow in importance or brilliance. Both of these things turned out to be true. In the years following her death we gained spouses and cousins and nephews and nieces and partners and pets. And other lights have become more bright. In my life, my friends-family which had been a steady warm glow became a more central illumination. And my husband, who was new at the time, has become the center of my universe and acquired at least three satellites of his own (this is only moderately a reflection of increased mass and an over abundance of gravity).
The star that guided the wise men to Bethlehem may have been just a star for the occasion, maybe not a lasting star, maybe one that burned out, maybe not a star at all but Venus. But it doesn’t matter really because it guides us all whether it is there or not. Important stars do that.
