Mtr Taylor Devine
Dear Friend,
This week we entered the brief season of Epiphany with a service of Holy Eucharist and an Epiphany party. Together we mark points in the Church year with special feasts and fasts to worship, to teach, and to tune our hearts to the life and work of Jesus. I've been thinking about Feasts since Christmas this year, enjoying the time with Church and family and friends, and noticing the way the season of feasting sets off-kilter our usual patterns albeit briefly.
I came across this poem that honors the transformation we experience when we come face to face with the source of our feast that leads to deep joy.
One king’s epiphany
- Madeline L'Engle
I shall miss the stars.
Not that I shall stop looking
as they pattern their wild will each night
across an inchoate sky, but I must see them with a different awe.
If I trace their flames’ ascending and descending –
relationships and correspondences –
then I deny what they have just revealed.
The sum of their oppositions, juxtapositions, led me to the end of all sums:
a long journey, cold, dark and uncertain,
toward the ultimate equation.
How can I understand? If I turn back from this,
compelled to seek all answers in the stars,
then this – Who – they have led me to
is not the One they said: they will have lied.
No stars are liars!
My life on their truth!
If they had lied about this
I could never trust their power again.
But I believe they showed the truth,
truth breathing,
truth Whom I have touched with my own hands,
worshipped with my gifts.
If I have bowed, made
obeisance to this final arithmetic,
I cannot ask the future from the stars without betraying
the One whom they have led me to.
It will be hard not ask, just once again,
see by mathematical forecast where he will grow,
where go, what kingdom conquer, what crown wear.
But would it not be going beyond truth
(the obscene reduction ad absurdum)
to lose my faith in truth once, and once for all
revealed in the full dayspring of the sun?
I cannot go back to night.
O Truth, O small and unexpected thing,
You have taken so much from me.
How can I bear wisdom’s pain?
But I have been shown: and I have seen.
Yes. I shall miss the stars.
The way in which feasts and fasts re-orient us may have a similar effect - what do we do with this deepening knowledge of Jesus' love for the world, what do we do when we get up close and personal with the truth that changes everything?
In Christ,
Mtr Taylor
The next feast celebrated at Saint Philip's is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. Come to worship, learn, share, and feast on this occasion on Saturday, January 25th, at 5:30 pm. Dinner follows the feast (potluck, but just bring yourself if that's a challenge!) Dr. Kevin Justus will offer a sacred art presentation to help us engage the feast (More information about the presentation can be found in the ENews.)