Epiphany - Star of Wonder

 

 "Without the quest, there can be no epiphany."
(Constantine E. Scaros)

 "Epiphany Poem"

 

The red king
Came to a great water. He said,
Here the journey ends.
No keel or skipper on this shore.
The yellow king
Halted under a hill. He said,
Turn the camels round.
Beyond, ice summits only.
The black king
Knocked on a city gate. He said,
All roads stop here.
These are gravestones, no inn.
The three kings
Met under a dry star.
There, at midnight,
The star began its singing.
The three kings
Suffered salt, snow, skulls.
They suffered the silence
Before the first word.
                                                   (George Mackay-Brown)

 

I've always liked the sound of the word "Epiphany". I probably use it far too often, way out of context and largely inappropriately. I also know some very charming and articulate atheists who enthuse about their "epiphanies" and "road to Damascus" moments.

The Christmas story tells us that wise men and uneducated shepherds alike followed an uncharted and unusually bright star as a celestial augury; many might find this naïve in these times of out-of-this-world technologies such as space telescopes and particle physics. We've witnessed eclipses of the moon and sun, the appearance of "new" stars and planets, asteroid storms and catastrophically extreme weather; the latter, all too prevalent in our Christmas and New Year news. Sometimes jaded about disasters in the Great Elsewhere, we call it misfortune closer to Home.

When I was little, someone told me the sun was the morning star. Far from being scientifically correct, it seemed very comforting. It still does, even after discovering the joys of the late lamented Sir Patrick Moore, Professor Brian Cox and of course Doctor Who. Our solace in familiarity and continuity evolves from childhood fears: the moon lights the night and the sun will be there to greet us in the morning.

Maybe we're so keen to establish continuity, order and control, unravelling the mysteries of the universe as we harness new ways to exterminate mankind, that we take for granted the true wonders of our lives. A Facebook friend pointed out today that the sun really is always waiting beyond the dark, stormy skies and unprecedented tides. Aside from being our morning star, the sun never actually sets, blazing in the Great Elsewhere while we sleep. We've lost the wonder of things we cannot recreate or fully capture because they support our everyday existence.

The thing I find most haunting about George Mackay-Brown's poem for Epiphany is that it makes no mention of the traditional gifts associated with the magi. Frankincense, gold and myrrh would be heady gifts for an infant even by Kardashian standards. The real gift from these learned and respected men was that they acknowledged wonder and followed faithfully into the unknown; an epiphany for them and the greatest gift of all to themselves, as much as any offering they could make to an unknown baby born in a barn.



"There's nothing better when something comes and hits you and you think 'YES'!"  
(J.K. Rowling)

 "I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking."  
(Albert Einstein)

 "I had an epiphany a few years ago when I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.”
(Moby)

"Looking into the spirit of others is sometimes like looking into a pond. Though we aim to see what's deep in the bottom, we are often distracted by our own reflection."
(Katina Ferguson)

"The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany."
(Rebecca Solnit)

"God's voice is usually nothing more than a whisper, and you have to listen very carefully to hear it. But other times, in those rarest of moments, the answer is obvious and rings as loud as a church bell."
(Nicholas Sparks)

"These are maybe the most exciting stars, those just above where sky meets land and ocean, because we so seldom see them, blocked as they usually are by atmosphere…and, as I grow more and more accustomed to the dark, I realize that what I thought were still clouds straight overhead aren’t clearing and aren’t going to clear, because these are clouds of stars, the Milky Way come to join me. There’s the primal recognition, my soul saying, yes, I remember."
(Paul Bogard)

"I always like those moments of epiphany, when you have the next destination."
(Brad Pitt)

 

"Lark in the Clear Air"  Cara Dillon (version)

 

A darkness on the edge of town

"You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won't mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word .... connections are made with the heart, not the tongue." 
(C. Joybell)

 

It's certainly true that you never know how much you rely upon something, accept and expect, even cherish something, until it's not there. At the end of June, three Vodafone masts somewhere out on the South Downs spluttered and fell silent. I'm aware that some parts of Brighton and it's suburbs were without Vodafone mobile coverage for three weeks. There was a palpable darkness at the edge of the town. My own little mobile was silent for a week, but these eerily quiet days over-lapped with my beleaguered BT landline finally admitting defeat, which also rendered my broadband speechless and my laptop comatose.
I live in a small street that's usually disproportionately noisy and which forms a horse-shoe in and out of a busy, in-yer-face main road. There's an exuberant little primary school across the street, with the playground leaning onto the road. There's usually some manner of building works banging away somewhere nearby. My next-door neighbours, with three new babies as part of the extended clan, are from Liverpool: I love them dearly, but they would be the first to admit that the Liverbird larynx comes with integral speakers! And speaking of birds, my beloved seagulls are the running commentary to this city; at worst, like a particularly overwrought Jeremy Kyle audience. In short, you actually have to retreat to find silence or to experience real loneliness in this area.
Although I live on my own and still don't really "know" many folk in this area, I'm far from reclusive. I think I'm a friendly soul. I'm interested in people and expect most to respond warmly or at least civilly. Yet for several days, the enforced lack of communication behind my closed door felt isolating and frankly worrying. With no access to even emergency calls, it may have been natural to fret about fire or footsteps on the stairs at night. Facebook was sullenly closed to me for a few days and I even found myself totting up how many of my daily free online bingo tokens were lost. I couldn't update this little blog and am still trying to catch up on posts I wanted to add; I worry that I've lost phrases and even thoughts I'd been unable to commit to screen. Can you ever actually lose a thought? Surely my own conscience is the most precious hard-drive ever created.
What left me feeling bereft was loss of contact from those who've become part of my daily routine. Most of my closest friends live in London or beyond, but even my neighbour here will text me to say "Cuppa?", expecting me to respond with "Five mins". Technology has expedited and streamlined our communications with "free talk minutes", "txt spk" and character regulated "tweets". Even personal emails promote abridged friendliness and abbreviated emotions, with "LOLs" and "smiley faces" rendering exclamations of joy unnecessary and rather embarrassing.
The Yorkshire novelist, playwright and broadcaster J. B. Priestley was a man who knew how to work and play with words, becoming a Doctor of Letters in his later years. He once noted that the more elaborate our means of communication become, the less we actually communicate. My own shelves of words often make me wistful for the worlds of Austen and the Brontes, with rounds of perfumed letters preserved in initialled trunks under the bed and earnest, totally unseasonally attired lovers riding across sodden moors, collapsing in a consumptive heap on the threshold. Usually choosing to walk around Brighton, I often arrive back at my own front door seriously bedraggled after a trip to Aldis. I actually have a couple of vintage trunks under my bed but the only secrets they store are stockings, hot water bottles and spare bedding. There's a man who walks his rather snooty dog "Heathcliff", often stopping to let him poop by my roses (the dog, not the owner). But I digress: even the largely emotionally sterile, character-economic, technical truncations of the internet won't stop a digressor.
 

 

I'm the first to admit that I usually have something to say and can talk. A lot. I like the art and science of words: these seemed fine reasons to start a blog, over a year ago now, when I was unemployed. But I also appreciate silence and always find myself looking for what's left unsaid when the conversation has ended. There's a precious silence in the closest relationships; an emotional recognition and communion negating words. Yet sometimes things must be said, the surety of feelings needs to be voiced to uncertain hearts. Sometimes words won't flow, stemmed by too much self-doubt or fear of offending, too much anger or pain, even too much love.
Doubt is the natural enemy of love. The unspoken may provide poignant memories but regrets are too dried and crumbly to rest prettily in a purple ribbon. For every pair of star-crossed lovers confounded by fortune, there will be dozens of chances choked upon and broken bridges languishing by a bank of missing planks. God gave us the security of silence but also a wealth of words and the luxury of language. Talk to each other, listen; you really can't successfully do either one without the other.
The word "communication" comes from the Latin for "sharing". Open communication lends itself to community; harmonised interests, values and intimacy. And yet it seems that enhanced routes and almost time-travelling speeds in modern communication have led to inappropriate over-familiarity, contempt and apathy. And when those routes fail, we feel almost socially excluded. We assume the landline, mobile, email or social network will be there tomorrow: the idea, opportunity, emotion or even the person may not be. If our connections were reduced to one letter a month and a steed galloping up-country instead of current upload speeds, we would surely say more in that letter. My Mum and Dad never let the sun set on a problem in case one of them might not be there to see the sunrise. Not a sentiment shared by BT and Vodafone it seems.
Two prisoners in adjoining cells will talk to each other by knocking on the wall. The barrier between them becomes their route of communication; their separation becomes a link between them. Knock knock?

  

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."
(Charles Dickens)

"Man is a creature who lives not upon bread alone, but primarily by catchwords."
(Robert Louis Stevenson)

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
 (George Bernard Shaw)

"If the darkening sky could lift
more than one hour from this day
there are words I would never have said
nor have heard you say."
(Carol Ann Duffy)

 

"Darkness On The Edge Of Town"  Bruce Springsteen)

 

  "Everybody's got a secret, sonny,
Something that they just can't face,
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it,
They carry it with them every step they take.
Till some day they just cut loose;
Cut it loose or let it drag them down;
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face,
In the darkness on the edge of town."
(B. Springsteen)

 

 

Book Club

We each have a story through this life. I firmly believe that people, events and places come into our lives for a reason: they are part of our story and we are part of theirs. This past week, my story has seemed quite disjointed, as though it's carrying on regardless of me, thinking I was a central player; taking curves and making cuts that I was not anticipating.
I now know that the word "history" originates from the Greek "historia", meaning the inquiry into and acquiring of knowledge; therefore, really encompassing the past and anything that evolves from it. When I was a little girl, I remember enchanting a teacher called Mr Snewin by explaining to him that history itself was really God's book - His Story. As a heady adult now, I still like the sound of that. 
As a Catholic, I believe my story has been created by God and presented to me as a gift, almost like a boxed set of something wonderful. What I take from the unfolding of it, what I learn and how I grow with that knowledge could be my gift of gratitude in return to the Author of the Universe.
I'm in the middle of statutory Jury Service and although I was a reluctant juror thrust into a very uncomfortable case, it now feels like part of my story for another tale to be known to me and for me to play an unexpected part. Most of the other jurors look very familiar to me, although we've never obviously encountered each other before: indeed, we are all very different and yet we seem to gel. Anyone who already knows me will appreciate what a Gigi-like statement that is. 
When people and elements of your own life seem to let you down at every turn, it's important to keep faith with what feels true to you; your story. We shouldn't try to live other people's lives for them or write their lines, any more than we should seek to pass that responsibility on to others.
I've learned to look out for those in life who are meant to be part of my story and to see how I can best serve or colour theirs. This is a short post, because I am weary from court, because I have an injured hand; because I feel just a few fleeting words could wing their way to those I call Friends, whose own pages might also seem smudged or faint at the moment. 
A quote from an uncredited source seems to hang in the room around me at the moment: "It's hard to wait around for something you know might never happen, but it's even harder to give up when it's everything you ever wanted." My own blinking and twittering little emotional SatNav tells me not to mess with the route if I can't better it. Sometimes, chapters close suddenly and new ones open in unimagined scenery and unforeseen circumstances. Your story will still be there: look for the surprisingly warm smile, the name or place that rings a bell, the something that you always wanted to do. Trust that God may appear to change what He wants for or from you, but that the only agenda is your fulfillment  Read between your own lines, take comfort in your own essential smallness in the greatest story that will ever be told.

"People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around." 

(Terry Pratchett)

"Wayfaring Stranger"  Ed Sheeran (version)

"I have my own story, and I love my story, but I know I can't tell it alone, not now. Because stories have centres, but they don't have edges. No boundaries." 

(Andrew Clements)