The Personal Epiphany
At this time every January come celebrations of the 12th Night and Epiphany.
So many people have a sense of emptiness as our widely recognized holidays in the United States wind up after New Year's. But for many around the world, the joy is just gaining steam as the seasons of Mardi Gras and Carnival begin. I guess we don't allow this contagion to take hold because it would get in the way of our need to be engaged in the busyness of work, school, schedules, and other pressing responsibilities. Joy and Celebration are reserved for weekends. Why only on weekends? The feast should go on every day!
But I digress. Epiphany is meant to remind us of a dream that warned the Magi who sought and found baby Jesus to avoid a royal lynch mob by going home another way. It was a life-saver for them. But like most of those stories, there is a broader lesson for each of us. The awakening and new understanding of those Ah-Ha or Eureka moments were not relegated to Wise Men two thousand plus years ago. They are not confined only to holy people or those seekers on a spiritual quest. For Thomas Merton, the monk and author, a personal epiphany came on a shopping trip to Louisville, Kentucky. For Bill Wilson of AA, it came during a white light moment while hospitalized. For Albert Einstein, it came while he was sailing. Harper Lee writes about hers in the semi-autobiographical To Kill A Mockingbird through the eyes of the little girl, Scout;
I turned to go home. Street lights winked down the street all the way to town. I had never seen our neighborhood from this angle. There were Miss Maudie's, Miss Stephanie's-there was our house, I could see the porch swing-Miss Rachel's house was beyond us, plainly visible.
The result of an epiphany is a new or expanded sense of self and of life. It creates a deep belief. The cry of the heart announces; "I found it" followed by wonder and awe. Light is shed on what had been unseeable. What was unknowable overcomes darkness with love.
My own epiphany came on a camping trip in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I was sleeping in a tent under an awning of stars with my best friend near what is believed to be a Cherokee ritual space among huge boulders. I was awakened in a dream to find the back of the tent gone. The vision offered me a glimpse at the edge of the Universe overlooking all of creation. It was all good and it was all God. Nothing separated any of us from each other or from anything that ever existed. It has shaped my life ever since. Not that my wanderings have always been without doubt or misdirection. I have stumbled more than once. But that moment of dream induced clarity can never be erased. It influences me regardless of the circumstances.
As this new decade descends and plays out, it will make all of the difference if we are willing to receive personal epiphanies. They come in small discoveries and in profound experiences. A great way to start is by allowing the season of celebration to continue. Let's not drag ourselves into the humdrum of ordinariness. The possibilities are endless. Every single moment is pregnant with hope.
Epiphany; Home By Another Way
Most of us long for a personal epiphany in our lives. We hunger for a transformation from who we are to who we dream of being. But what is needed in order to achieve such a change?
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers…And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
Thomas Merton
Today is the Feast of Epiphany. Three Wise Men have traveled from great distances to follow a star. They encounter God-With-Us and are awakened to a new understanding of creator and creation. They had a shared vision of danger at the hands of King Herod and went 'home by another way' avoiding the cruelties of the world and were transformed. Their story has been told and retold for over two-thousand years.
Most of us long for a personal epiphany in our lives. We hunger for a transformation from who we are to who we dream of being. But what is needed in order to achieve such a change? These awakenings seem to be rather elusive and come at unlikely times. I have discovered that if we let go of worry, hurry and hate allowing the love inside to shine, we will become instruments of that love regardless of our circumstances.
One of the wonderful epiphanies of our time came to Bill Wilson, a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. His chronic addiction to alcohol led him to be committed for the fourth time to Manhattan’s Towns Hospital in 1934. He was sedated and hopeless. Bill prayed and wept for God to ‘make Himself present’. He describes what happened next;
“The result was instant, electric, beyond description. The place seemed to light up, blinding white. I knew only ecstasy and seemed on a mountain. A great wind blew, enveloping and penetrating me. To me, it was not of air, but of Spirit Blazing, there came the tremendous thought. ‘You are a free man.’ Then the ecstasy subsided. I found myself in a new world ofconsciousness which was suffused by a Presence. One with the Universe, a greatpeace stole over me.”
Bill’s spiritual awakening, or white-light experience, was a liberating awareness of God which has saved the lives of countless souls through the gift of 12 Step Recovery.
There are many other similar stories. A common thread seems to be that a person must be in a position where there is a desperate need to listen. Karl Menninger describes this listening as a force that creates us, unfolds us and expands us. We must be open to the improbable, listening for the miraculous, willing to follow the improbable star, eager for change, and brave enough to go home another way. Epiphanies will come. Life will never be the same.