Prescription Epiphany

Posted by J on Jan 6, 2013 in J Posts | 0 comments

S made an announcement at dinner this evening, over chicken shish kebap, cheese pita pizza, and some seriously wiped out children:

“When we get to Istanbul, I’m going to get some prescription glasses.”

She apparently was having difficulty reading the fine print on her water bottle … the latest, she said, in a string of eye straining moments she seemed ready to leave behind.

I scooped up some shredded carrots, avoiding the obvious questions about whether a water bottle label needed reading, and decided her quote was a useful springboard to what I’ve been thinking today about EPIPHANY.

Twelve days ago on Christmas Day, we were in Antalya, Turkey — more than two thousand years after three pagan wise men or scholars set out to worship a baby. They followed a star.

While re-reading the Christmas story in previous years, I think I’ve been taken by the near cacophony of noise and light and worship … like the Gospel Angels singing with the hillside shepherds … as my own family worshiped in large, well-lit churches or filled a living room with loud extended family.

This year, we celebrated Christmas in a nation for which the date is not a widely practiced celebration. In fact, the day was like any other day — a bit clear, a bit blurry, partially lit, partially dark — perhaps like S’s vision of the water bottle label.

The star or LIGHT we choose to follow, however, is pure, unending, life-changing, and life-leading … a *little* like the photo above, taken underneath Antalya’s Saint Paul Cultural Center on Christmas Eve. As a dozen choir voices practiced hymns in the room above, a street lamp was a patient reminder of the Light of Christmas … sent to guide us in the Way.