For You, On Epiphany
A free retreat (for a feast I love too much to stay silent) - plus essays from the archives
I love Epiphany: this feast of light and gifts, this celebration of illumination, this story of strangers leading us to God. (As you’ll see below, I’ve written long and deep about this one.)
For this year’s spin around the sun, I’m saving the essay on the feast for Saturday, but I wanted to share a delightful offering for you today—a gift for Epiphany.
Next week I’ll be offering a free Epiphany mini-retreat, thanks to the Church in the 21st Century Center at Boston College.
On Tues. Jan. 14th and Thurs. Jan. 16th, we’ll gather on Zoom to practice lectio divina and reflect on where God might be leading in the new year:
Where in our lives do we hope light will shine?
Where might God be calling us now?
How can the story of the Magi enlighten our spiritual practices?
Find more details here and sign up to join us next week! Session recordings will be made available later if you can’t join live, and you’ll get a free retreat guide when you register.
To savor again on Epiphany
A slow Epiphany. On trying to trust healing and hope after suffering and doubt. “The one question I can’t answer is what happened after Jesus left each leper, each blind man, each suffering woman, each sick child, each tormented soul. The Gospel writers rush after the next story, leaving the healed back at home. I want to linger with them, ask them how they lived next, hear how they made sense of what happened. Silence is the only answer. Silent as a star.”
Light, Darkly. On a dark night of the soul during a hard year: “Every light in the world changes. The moon waxes and wanes. The sun rises and sets. The stars turn and disappear. Is divine light the same? Or is mine what dims? Are we meant to receive the light or become it? Did we ever understand?”
The day after Epiphany. On living in the aftermath of grief or joy. “I do not know how to live in a world post-epiphany. Maybe no one does, who has peeked behind the veil and gasped at any glimpse of what they have seen. Over the last seven years I have spent most of my days wandering in my head, trying to walk around and function like a normal person when what I really want to do is sit down and try to figure out what happened—on that day, to my life, any of it. But I have been on the move since that strange Leap Year Day, trying to outrun death or trying to claw my way back (or forward) to the pure joy of beyond. It does not make for easy living.”