Wise Men

Step softly, under snow or rain,
To find the place where men can pray;
The way is all so very plain
That we may lose the way.

Oh, we have learnt to peer and pore
On tortured puzzles from our youth,
We know all labyrinthine lore,
We are the three wise mert of yore,
And we know all things but the truth.

We have gone round and round the hill,
And lost the wood among the trees,
And learnt long names for every ill,
And served the mad gods, naming still
The Furies the Eumenides.

The gods of violence took the veil
Of vision and philosophy,
The Serpent that brought all men bale,
He bites his own accursed tail,
And calls himself Eternity.

Go humbly ... it has hailed and snowed ...
With voices low and lanterns lit;
So very simple is the road,
That we may stray from it.

The world grows terrible and white,
And blinding white the breaking day;
We walk bewildered in the light,
For something is too large for sight,
And something much too plain to say.

The Child that was ere worlds begun
(... We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone,...)
The Child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.

The house from which the heavens are fed,
The old strange house that is our own,
Where tricks of words are never said.
And Mercy is as plain as bread,
And Honour is as hard as stone.

Go humbly; humble are the skies,
And low and large and fierce the Star;
So very near the Manger lies
That we may travel far.

Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes
To roar to the resounding plain,
And the whole heaven shouts and shakes,
For God Himself is born again,
And we are little children walking
Through the snow and rain.

Epiphany and the Past

I don't believe in time.*  Not in the sense of the passing of one second providing a magical break for all the world, especially a moment arbitrarily marked by pagan emperor's centuries ago.  Within the liturgical year there are many moments of new beginnings and times for reflection--the new liturgical year beginning with Advent, Lent which is a time for self reflection and sacrifice, and even Christmas.  Yet these are the opposite of clean breaks and instead invoke the past and the future.  Even Christmas, the celebration of the beginning of Christ's life on earth also invokes His end in the gifts of the kings.  As Chesterton says;

There were three things prefigured and promised by the gifts in the cave in Bethlehem concerning the Child who received them; that He would be crowned like a King; that He should be worshipped like a God; and that He should die like a man. And these things would sound like Eastern flattery, were it not for the third.

Enjolras wrote last New Year about the falseness of new beginnings, how resolutions cannot change your past--and perhaps that is why they usually fail to change the future.  New Year's resolutions foster the myth of advancement, the future must be better because of the unstoppable march of progress and time.  Christianity tells us the opposite, that because of the fall we will never achieve perfection on earth.

This is not meant to be a depressing or defeatist thought.  In fact, the proper response to this realization is to keep working towards peace and a world where everyones right's are protected, dignity is affirmed and basic needs are met, but the knowledge of original sin protects us from despair when this most assuredly does not happen.  But this knowledge that the future will not necessarily be better than the past also reminds us that a checklist of personal self-improvement projects are not enough--we also need reflection, study and knowledge but most of all we need the little baby born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.  And this is the lesson Christmas teaches as opposed to New Years, for as Chesterton once again says;

Christmas is an obstacle to modern progress. Rooted in the past, and even the remote past, it cannot assist a world in which the ignorance of history is the only clear evidence of the knowledge of science. Born among miracles reported from two thousand years ago, it cannot expect to impress that sturdy common sense which can withstand the plainest and most palpable evidence for miracles happening at this moment. . . .Christmas is not modern; Christmas is not Marxian; Christmas is not made on the pattern of that great age of the Machine, which promises to the masses an epoch of even greater happiness and prosperity than that to which it has brought the masses at this moment. Christmas is medieval; having arisen in the earlier days of the Roman Empire. Christmas is a superstition. Christmas is a survival of the past.

*This is why this post is a week and a half after New Years and also misses Epiphany and the end of the Christmas season entirely, not because I have been lazy and too unmotivated to write.  

We Once Were Kings

After the birth of Christ he was visited by the Magi who followed a star from the east. They did not come merely to gaze on this new king but brought with them gold, frankincense and myrrh.

While these gift's foreshadow Christ's life- frankincense and myrrh are used to prepare bodies for burial- they are not befitting his station. What would be a gift worthy of the Son of God? Instead, they are the gifts most fitting the giver, the best and most stately things they can offer.

This is what C. S. Lewis meant in Mere Christianity with his metaphor of the boy who borrows money from his father to buy him a present--the father is a sixpence none the richer. God also does not need our gifts, but we offer him our best, our talents and time, because it enriches us.

We are Kings, that is one of things we are called to. So with guidance from a star we too need to lay our gifts at the feet of Christ.