“Scared Times, Sacred
Tasks: Heiring, Bearing, & Sharing”
I prepared this title mid week in several
intensified lights. One, what the carol calls “the hopes and fears of all
the years” that meet in Bethlehem Christmas night. Two, the hopes and fears
of the magi, these so-called “kings,” through whom the more hopeful than
fearful parents of Jesus learn of the real kingly threats to him and act
accordingly. Three, the hopes and fears of all who perished, so many
different moments, ways and places, in the midst of the earthquake and the
tsunami; as well as the hopes and fears of those who survive! Who
remember. Four, even the hopes and fears surrounding our very own changes
of weather of various kinds, -- however pale to our imagination by contrast
with great tragedy bestriding so much of the world.
Then I heard Paul in this text addressing
the mystery of all the ages! He calls this mystery simply “Christ,” the
fullness of whom always exceeds our grasp. Christ remains always yet to be
explored, experienced again in new ways. Discerned, discovered each for
ourselves. Remembered, revealed again, in and to and for our own times.
Faith is forever the conviction of what we have not yet seen, the assurance
of that for which we can only hope! So often, it seems, against hope. And
yet the essence of the mystery comes so clear to Paul: we are all one in
this Christ! We, many as we are, broken, fragmented, scattered as we are,
-- we are all one . . . . All the old barriers are passé. All the old
boundaries are now obsolete. We are all one with each other, -- every
place, every time, every one of us, -- in every circumstance, every
condition, of life in this world, life on this earth. That is the
mysterious promise, far from us as ever and always it seems. Together we
are heir to, together we bear, together we share, a full promise of the
creation, whose Creator remains no less mysterious to every now as then.
Every New Year must arrive in its very own way. . . .
So at last I decided not to preach.
Rather, I choose to stand, in wonder and awe, in the light of these hopes
and these fears, and in the words of the poets! All poets responding to
this one story of the mysterious “magi.” Magi are plural of “magus,” member
of the hereditary priestly class among ancients Medes and Persians. Their
doctrine included belief in astrology, mysterious among the stars, and
following special stars, and the promise of light that has yet to reveal.
The magi were thought to be adept in arts of the occult. They could be
magicians and sorcerers! Even as poets may be with their words and their
images. From “magi” my mind leapt to “magic!” I remembered the “Christmas
Magic” show we just took our grandkids to at the Magic Underground. We were
offered pure gifts of illusion! And we were invited to see the magic not
only as a problem for us to figure out and to solve. We were invited to see
it as well as yet another mystery of life, to be embraced as it was and
believed for all it was worth . . . . So from “magic” to “imagination” . . .
the choice, the chance, the challenge, the courage, to see each and all
things with new eyes! In new ways! Toward new ends! Please stand with me
in whatever the light of these words.
And each time I pause among poems to sit
down, let’s sing another verse of No. 254, “We Three Kings.” The poems are
collected in a volume entitled The Gospels in Our Image: An Anthology of
Twentieth-Century Poetry Based on Biblical Texts. It is edited by David
Curzon.
T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi
“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
And the camels galled, sore-footed,
refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor
and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack
of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns
unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high
prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate
valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of
vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill
beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the
meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves
over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces
of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
Bit there was no information, and so we
continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too
soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say)
satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth,
certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen
birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this
Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death,
our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old
dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
William Carlos Williams, “The Gift”
As the wise men of old brought gifts
guided by a star
to the humble birthplace
of the god of love,
the devils
as an old print shows
retreated in confusion.
What could a baby know
of gold ornaments
or frankincense and myrrh,
of priestly robes
and devout genuflections?
But the imagination
knows all stories
before they are told
and knows the truth of this one
past all defection.
The rich gifts
so unsuitable for a child
though devoutly proffered,
stood for all that love can bring.
The men were old
how could they know
of a mother’s needs
or a child’s
appetite?
But as they kneeled
the child was fed.
They saw it
and gave praise!
A miracle
had taken place,
hard gold to love,
a mother’s milk!
before
their wondering eyes.
The ass brayed
the cattle lowed.
It was their nature.
All men by their nature give praise.
It is all
they can do.
The very devils
by their flight give praise.
What is death,
beside this?
Nothing. The wise men
came with gift
and bowed down
to worship
this perfection.
Boris Pasternak, “The Christmas Star”
It was winter. The wind
Blew from the plain.
And the infant was cold
In the cave in the slope of a hill.
The breath of an ox
Warmed him. The livestock
Stood in the cave.
A warm mist drifted over the manger.
Having shaken hay-dust
And grains of millet off their sheepskins,
Shepherds stared sleepily
From a cliff into the midnight distance.
Far off were a snow-covered field,
A graveyard, gravestones, fences,
A cart’s shafts in a snowdrift,
And, above the graveyard, a star-filled sky.
And nearby, unseen until then,
More humble than an oil-lamp
In a hut’s window, a star
Glimmered over the road to Bethlehem.
It blazed like a haystack, apart
From heaven and God.
Like a reflection from arson,
Like a farmstead or a threshing floor in
flames.
It towered like a burning rick
Of hay or straw
In the midst of a universe
Alarmed by this new star.
A growing glow, red above the star,
Was portending something,
And three astrologers hastened
To the call of that unprecedented light.
Behind them trod gift-laden camels;
Harnessed donkeys, each smaller than the one
In front, were going down the hill in little
steps.
And all that was to come later
Sprang up far off like a strange vision.
All thoughts of the ages, all dreams, all
worlds,
All the future of galleries and museums,
All pranks of fairies, all works of
magicians,
All fir trees on earth, all dreams of
children.
All the tremor of lighted candles, festoons,
All the splendor of colored tinsel . . .
. . . Even more cruel and furious, the wind
blew from the field . . .
. . . All the apples, all the gold glass
globes.
Part of the pond was hidden by alder trees,
But, through rooks’ nests and treetops,
Part of it was seen quite well from here.
The shepherds could make out clearly
The donkeys and camels plodding along the
mill-pond.
-- Let’s go with everyone and worship the
miracle,
They said, closing their coats around them.
Shuffling about in the snow made them warm.
Tracks of bare feet, like sheets of mica,
Led over the bright meadow and behind the
hovel.
Sheep dogs growled in the star’s light
At the tracks, as at the flame of the
candle’s stub.
The winter night resembled a fairy tale,
And someone from the snow-covered mountain
range
Was constantly mingling, unseen, with the
rest.
The dogs wandered, looked back with caution,
And sensed danger, and pressed close to the
herdsboy.
Along the same road, through the same land,
Several angels walked with the throng.
Their incorporeality made them invisible,
But each of their steps left a footprint.
A horde of men stood around the rock.
Day was breaking. The trunks of the cedars
showed.
-- Who are you? – Mary asked them.
-- We’re a shepherd tribe and envoys from
heaven;
We came to sing praises to both of you.
-- You cannot all go in. Wait outside.
In the haze before dawn, gray as ashes,
The drovers and shepherds stamped about.
Those who came on foot bickered with riders.
By a log hollowed out for a trough
Camels brayed, donkeys kicked.
Day was breaking. The dawn
Swept the last stars, bits of ashes, from
the sky.
Of the vast rabble, Mary allowed
Only the Magi to enter the cleft in the
rock.
He slept, all luminous, in the oak manger,
Like a moonbeam in the hollow of a tree.
Instead of a sheepskin, he was warmed
By the lips of a donkey and the nostrils of
an ox.
They stood in the shadow, as in the dust of
a barn;
They whispered, groping for words.
Suddenly, in the dark, one touched another
To move him a bit to the left of the manger,
And the other turned: from the threshold,
like a guest,
The Christmas star was looking at the
Maiden.
William Butler Yeats, “The Magi”
Now as at all times I can see the mind’s
eye,
In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale
unsatisfied ones
Appear and disappear in the blue depth of
the sky
With all their ancient faces like
rain-beaten stones,
And all their helms of silver hovering side
by side,
And all their eyes still fixed, hoping to
find once more,
Being by Calvary’s turbulence unsatisfied,
The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial
floor.
Louise Gluck, “The Magi”
Toward world’s end, through the bare
beginnings of winter, they are traveling
again.
How many winters have we seen it happen,
watched the same sign come forward as they
pass
cities sprung around this route their gold
engraved on the desert, and yet
held our peace, these
being the Wise, come to see at the
accustomed hour
nothing changed; roofs, the barn
blazing in darkness, all they wish to see.
Ramon Guthrie, “The Magi”
The three wise men looked equivocally
at three different stars.
The one who was fluent in Aramaic asked the
shepherds,
“Are there in these place one inn?”
Impious shipwreck.
We had come well supplied
with slippers and sleeping pills
laxatives lighter fluid flea powder
inflatable mattresses and in case of need
a month’s supply of prophylactics.
Each saying, “I saw his star and
Dropping everything, set out,
sur l’eperon du moment, comme disent les
Anglais,
quite unprepared, just as I was.”
We found three different Kristkinder
in three different mangers
and went home satisfied
leaving three different infants to make what
they might
of frankincense and myrrh.
We have written three different books
All unpublished
Each in his own tongue
Telling of the hardships and perils of the
voyage
Jeffrey Fiskin, “The Magi”
They were kings, after all.
Cold, raddled by the wind,
Drilled with foreign sand,
They were political
By blood of birth or war
And so followed the news
Through unexpected snows,
Sheltering among the poor
In rough splintered lofts
Until the first light came
And they at last saw Him
And offered their useless gifts.
They were kings, after all,
Their journey political.
Marina Tsvetayeva, “Bethlehem”
Three kings,
Three coffers,
With precious gifts.
The first coffer –
All the earth,
With its blue seas.
The second coffer:
All of Noah,
All, ark-and-beasts.
Well, and in that one?
What’s in the third?
What’s in the third, my king?
The king is giving
--Good God!
What’s the meaning of this?
The king – steps forward,
The mother – back,
And the baby is crying.
Jovan Hristic, “That Night They All Gathered
on the Highest Tower”
That night they all gathered on the highest
tower:
Astronomers, mathematicians, and one of the
magi from Syria
To read in the stars the glory of the King
of Kings,
And demonstrate his immortality with the aid
of geometry.
Just before dawn, they nodded their heads in
accord
With one another’s interpretations. The
answer of the stars
Was positive. The trumpets announced
The glory of the King of Kings to the rising
sun.
In the palace, at the table set for the
feast, they were awaited
By the one to whom the stars gave their word
tonight,
And whose future now overflowed like new
wine
Which in the golden chalices awaited the
toasts.
Only some youth who had recently mastered
geometry,
Was not fully convinced by what was read in
the stars,
For the stars always give their answer to
mortals
But to what question, only they themselves
know.
James Dickey, “The Magus”
It is time for the others to come.
This child is no more than a god.
No cars are moving this night.
The lights in the houses go out.
I put these out with the rest.
From his crib, the child begins
To shine, letting forth one ray
Through the twelve simple bars of his bed
Down into the trees, where two
Long-lost other men shall be drawn
Slowly up to the brink of the house,
Slowly in through the breath on the window.
But how did I get in this room?
Is this my son, or another’s?
Where is the woman to tell me
How my face is lit up by his body?
It is time for the others to come.
An event more miraculous yet
Is the thing I am shining to tell you.
This child is no more than a child.
Sylvia Plath, “Magi”
The abstracts hover like dull angels:
Nothing so vulgar as a nose or an eye
Bossing the ethereal blanks of their
face-ovals.
Their whiteness bears no relation to
laundry,
Snow, chalk or suchlike. They’re
The real thing, all right; the Good, the
True –
Salutary and pure as boiled water,
Loveless as the multiplication table.
While the child smiles into thin air.
Six months in the world, and she is able
To rock on all fours like a padded hammock.
For her, the heavy notion of Evil
Attending her cot is less than a belly ache,
And Love the mother of milk, no theory.
They mistake their star, these papery
godfolk.
They want the crib of some lamp-headed
Plato.
Let them astound his heart with their merit.
What girl ever flourished in such company?
Stanislaw Baranczak, “The Three Magi”
They will probably come just after the New
Year.
As usual, early in the morning.
The forceps of the doorbell will pull you
out by the head
from under the bedclothes; dazed as a
newborn baby,
you’ll open the door. The star of an ID
will flash before your eyes.
Three men. In one of them you’ll recognize
with sheepish amazement (isn’t this a small
world) your schoolmate of years ago.
Since that time he’ll hardly have changed,
only grown a mustache,
perhaps gained a little weight.
They’ll enter. The gold of their watches
will glitter (isn’t
this a gray dawn), the smoke from their
cigarettes
will fill the room with a fragrance like
incense.
All that’s missing is myrrh, you’ll think
half-consciously –
While with your heel you’re shoving under
the couch the book
they mustn’t find –
what is this myrrh, anyway,
you’d have to finally look it up
someday. You’ll come
with us, sir. You’ll go
with them. Isn’t this a white snow.
Isn’t this a black Fiat.
Wasn’t this a vast world.
