It was Epiphany Sunday and the choir sang “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” and the minister told again the story of wise men from the East who were guided in their long journey from distant realms by a star to the Baby Jesus and his mother. He hedged only a little with phrases like, “tradition holds,” and “the story goes,” but I got the distinct impression that he believes the immense universe rearranged itself around the birth of a child in the little town of Bethlehem near Jerusalem.

It’s a story I didn’t think to question when I was a child. For a long time after I became an adult, I was afraid to think the story might be myth. I think I was afraid of losing the assurance that the historical Jesus was less than I wanted him to be, less than I needed him to be. I thought that if some of the details of his birth and his life that I had learned in Vacation Bible School were indeed myth instead of Gospel truth, I would lose Him with a capital “H.” I was wrong. The story as myth is even better. I haven’t lost Him.

EPIPHANY

Starshine faint from far
unfathomable space
cuts cleanly the darkness,
finally hits the hill
where I stand staring
into the sieve of night.

Accidents happen.
Free floating radicals
and wayward space junk
interrupt the good order
signaling the beginning
or the end of what?

Three kings in the Bible story
were not kings at all
perhaps not even wise men,
maybe itinerant astrologers
who used profession
as excuse to travel.

Epiphany always comes later,
after the myth is born.

In this story, which I love,
The good stuff is all there:
A star,
A baby,
A manger,
and camels
in Bethlehem.