After a brief hiatus in posting due to a number of pressing academic issues, I post once more.  Today, I mention Epiphany.  Epiphany is, in effect, the last gasp of the Christmas season, the day on which this profound and happy time finally draws to a close.  In celebrating Epiphany (a word meaning, literally, the manifestion of a divine being), we most of all remember the faith of a group of travelers from Persia in the Zoroastrian and biblical prophecies which they had encountered in their studies.

     After much examination of these texts, these magi ("wise" men) concluded that the world was on the precipice of a momentous event:  the birth of a new king.  And, they understood, this king would be unlike any other.  In contrast to other royalty, this king would emerge from humble circumstances, a stable outside Bethlehem, a tiny and forgettable village in southern Palestine.  Significantly, however, this king would exceed all of his counterparts and predecessors in the essence of his person.
     He would be, these scholars realized, human and divine.  In him, the magi saw, God had really come to earth.  Small wonder that they made the arduous journey over the Zagros Mountains, across the arid expanse of Arabia, and onto the international trade routes that coursed through the Levant.  Who would have imagined such a thing?
     And that's the point:  who would have imagined God would be born as a human being?
     Because God was born as a human being, however, everything else we understand about ourselves and our reality falls into place:  our worth is affirmed.  It is affirmed not by us telling ourselves that we are worthwhile simply because we are worthwhile, a circular argument to be sure, but by the only person out of which worth and a meaningful world is possible.
     We may dismiss Ephiphany, we may reject Hanukkah, we may let go of Kwanza.  Yet we cannot let go of our need for meaning.  Epiphany demonstrates that only when we let inklings of the divine into our hearts will we understand what the world is really all about.
     Good to be back!