An Epiphanytide Blessing

Santa Cruz, CA

Matthew 2:1-12

May the landscape of your new year
be less treacherous than the news cycle suggests.

May you be blessed
with the stubborn curiosity of the Magi,
willing to follow a star
even when common sense
says you should have stayed on the couch.

May your gifts be given
and received with grace,
even if—like frankincense and myrrh—
they seem a bit odd and specific to your peculiar talents
for we must remember that God can use anything,
even the spiritual equivalent of embalming oil.

May the light of the Epiphany
shine into the hidden corners of your soul,
illuminating the beauty that resides there,
while mercifully ignoring the pine needles
that have escaped the wrath of your vacuum cleaner
(and will probably still be with you next Christmas).

And when you have finally seen the Child,
may God grant you the wisdom
to return to your depths “by another way.”
May you side-step the Herods of this world,
taking comfort in the fact
that paranoid kings are tragically unoriginal.

Whether in the first century or the twenty-first,
they are always doing exactly what Herods do.
Let them fret over their fragile little fiefdoms
as you walk in the strange, quiet confidence
of those who have seen the Light
and lived to tell the tale.