Monthly Archives: January 2013

It is January in the year 2013. Time passes. My oldest granddaughter turned twenty-five yesterday. My mother turns ninety-three next week. Christmas is over and the cold stillness of January surrounds us. I have put away the Christmas things… except for a candle to light at suppertime. Time passes, falling through the years like a waterfall, a river of light.

Most of these new year days have been filled with tapping my keyboard and developing small callouses on the tips of my fingers. I am typing and editingThe Life of Raymond Raynes by Nicholas Mosley (1961). Last year I edited Father Raynes’ retreat addresses given in Denver in 1957, called The Faith, Instructions on the Christian Faith. His words express the truth and joy of Christianity in a way I could understand, in a way, for that matter, most of us could understand. He speaks practically, reasonably, at times reminding me of C. S. Lewis, another Anglican apologist. Recently, Nicholas Mosley (Lord Ravensdale) gave our church publishing group, The American Church Union, permission to reprint the biography (thank you, Lord Ravensdale!), and now as my eyes capture the letters and words on the yellowing pages and I tap them onto the keyboard and into the document file and they mysteriously appear on the screen, I feel as though I have fallen into another world, the world of Mirfield in the north of England, home of the Community of the Resurrection. Yesterday I began a chapter set in South Africa and now I move through the dust and poverty of Sophiatown where the Community of the Resurrection established missions, schools, clinics.

Father Raynes was indeed a missionary. He brought the light of Epiphany, the manifestation of God on earth, into the homes of folks in the English countryside. He brought Epiphany into the hovels of Sophiatown in South Africa. He himself carried this light of Christ in his body, in his words, in his daily deeds. He glowed, he was embodied with Christ. I wish I had known him, yet I have been blessed to spend time with his biography, to shift these words from page to computer screen. Some of the words are his own, taken down in quotations, some of the words are his biographer’s, Nicholas Mosley. But the words move from the page into my mind and heart just as they move from the page through my fingers onto this screen. Father Raynes often said, “Life is a love-song we sing to Jesus.” Indeed – Father Raynes himself was a love song sung to Jesus. And the tune is a beautiful one, mellow, haunting, one that pulls me into his own heart. This is how God loves us – through real things, through real people. We call this the sacramental way.

Manifestation. Light. Telling the good news. Living the good news. And what is the good news? That God came to earth to be one of us, to bring us home to Heaven. No small thing – this promise of Heaven. No small thing – God’s love for us. No small thing – this immense and rich meaning granted to my time on earth. No small thing – hearing the music and the laughter and the joy of this sacramental way of knowing God.

I considered these things this morning in our parish church.  St. Peter’s in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland is a quiet oasis of holy contemplation, a place of rejuvenation. It is a place of singing great hymns and hearing ancient chants drift through the air. It is a place where we meet God, receive Him in the Eucharist. This beauty of holiness continues even as our preacher speaks from the central aisle, manifesting God’s love among us, enlightening us. It continues until the crucifer and torchbearers recess to the bright narthex doors, until the moment when the tall tapers on the altar are silently snuffed by the acolyte.  It continues to the moment when the organ booms the postlude and we leave our pews to greet our sisters and brothers, our family in God.

Manifestation. Light. Seeing God. Worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness amongst family and friends united by that light, by God’s manifestation to we gentiles in the first month of the Year of Our Lord two thousand and thirteen.

Epiphanytide is a short season this year – there is only one more Sunday. Soon we will consider Lent. But for now, in this moment in time, I shall be glad for God come among us, shining through us, and especially his shining through Father Raynes.

Our two cats are creatures of the earth. The red tabby, just a tad overweight, sleeps a great deal, and craves affection when awake. He hears us enter the house and is soon nuzzling and purring around our legs. The black-and-white longhair, a tad underweight, sleeps less and mourns our absence by dragging small stuffed animals around the house as she wails piercingly (we caught her doing this once when she couldn’t find us). When we return home we discover the baby white chicken on the stairs, the red ladybug near my office chair, the orange bumble bee by the front door. Laddie and Lady Jane are simple creatures with simple desires. They do not ask the meaning of life, or how to become happy, or why must we die.

But we humans do ask these questions. We wonder, we ponder, we plan, we record, we make lists. We read symbols called letters that form larger symbols called words that make up long phrases assembled to make paragraphs and pages and books. We follow a train of thought with these symbols as we build cities of ideas in the landscapes of our minds. We also, like cats, sleep and eat and love and desire friendship and community. But we are far more, for we reflect our Creator.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, when we celebrate the Wise Men following the bright star to worship the heavenly king born among men on earth. Our Jewish-Christian preacher, our new rector, stood in the center of the aisle this morning and described the long road the star had taken in time, from Abraham to the People of Israel to the Messiah born in Bethlehem. The numbers were many as the twelve tribes grew, but over the years a single tribe was chosen, a single family line was chosen, and a single woman was chosen to bear the Son of God, born to the People of Israel, in this moment in time. And we too, all others in the world – Gentiles – can now follow the star, that light in the darkness, to the Christ child.

The light in the darkness. We began in Advent with John’s promised light in the darkness. And now we end the twelve days of Christmas with that same image of light shining in the dark night.

The earthy things of creation are made new. The star recreates the manger of earth and beasts and childbirth in the hay to become something far greater than the natural order it seems to be part of. The star in the heavens bathes our planet in light, bathes us in light. We are pulled into eternity of time and space by such a star. And by such an incarnation. And by such a God.

God is born among men on earth. The supernatural intersects the natural. Our own spirits made in God’s image are called to understand, to believe, to meet this Heavenly Father, to hallow His Name.

I was thankful today in church for our new rector who understands this artful (and powerful) journey God made through time with his People of Israel. Our new rector understands the grand and glorious nature of the drama that has gone before us and he looks forward to the drama that will comes to each of us. He knows we are in the middle of the drama now, in the present. We need only see in the light.

The mother of a dear friend is dying. She will soon be part of the future drama, that great adventure of heaven when Christ will take her hand and lead her, bathing her in his love. And we, left behind on earth, will take part in the drama of the present with every Eucharist, every prayer, every sacramental offering as the new People of God, the Body of Christ. For that child born in Bethlehem, the culmination of the journey of the Children of Israel, has grown to become the Body of Christ on earth, the Church.

So we leave the rich and wonder-filled seasons of Advent and Christmas and enter Epiphanytide, the season of light. Like cats, we continue to eat and sleep. We continue to love and to be loved. But unlike cats, we partake of the holy as we worship together in church. Together as the Church we journey into a new year.  Together as His Body we follow the light of the bright star in the heavens, on the altar, as eternity grows within us.