Assiniboine, Frankincense, and Epiphany

here's the photograph i've studied more closely than probably any other.

it's mt. assiniboine by naturalist, traveler, photographer bryon harmon, circa 1920.

if you've been to my house and walked around, you've seen it hanging in our bedroom, a reminder of our honeymoon trip to banff. i've thought about writing a reflection on this photo for years but never have. it would take a long essay or a really concise poem to capture what i want to communicate. today is not the day to write that reflection. so in the meantime, if your monitor is calibrated, enjoy the photo's lighting.

take in the trialogue of forms: the peak, the tipi, the conifers.

stabbing, pointing, worshiping.

i catch whispers of endurance, life-span, artifact, hope.

so today we celebrate epiphany — further whispers of endurance, life-span, artifact, hope. we look to the skies and think of the dreams and constellations that prompted astrologers to stab westward. pointing, worshiping. we recount artifacts of incense and myrrh and gold. did these wise guys pitch their tents, tipis or yurts (i like that word) in sight of snow-tipped mountain peaks?

we celebrate Christ's light — phos hilaron: the pre-modern brand of enlightenment — while sidestepping any gnostic tendencies. we approach the path to mary's house in the dark (avoiding the death-squads) and knock and ask to see the boy. maybe we do this by means of small illuminations, here and there.

candles instead of klieg lights.

it's a little thing, a silly thing, but i decided to play/sing this little light of mine in church later this morning. (i'll tell you how it goes over later today). i took out a couple of lines because i could, and kept the smaller innocent parts:

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Ev'ry where I go, I'm going to let it shine
Ev'ry where I go, I'm going to let it shine
Ev'ry where I go, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

All around my house, I'm going to let it shine
All around my house, I'm going to let it shine
All around my house, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

my epiphany prayer is that our light shines — not so much to have the light-shining be the point, not so much to trumpet some bushel and its not being a proper hiding place for our imperialist index fingers, not so much a flame to illuminate the errors of our neighbors' journeys or an oriflamme to prevent satanic exhalations  — but that it would

simply

    and quietly

guide us toward that perfect Light.

[amen]