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With expectation for fun and sparkle, my elderly neighbour and I went to our local Community Hall, (a pioneer school converted to hall in 1937, much loved, maintained by volunteers). The annual Christmas Fair takes place on a Saturday morning (except of course 2019, 2020, 2021).  How pleasant it is to chat with locals, have coffee and mince tarts, peruse the handiworks of local knitters and crafters, and come home with some jams and a new tea cozy! I said to my neighbour, “Let’s go early when it opens and not stay long.” 

But what is this? As we approach the Hall, the parking lot is already jammed full and both sides of the highway are parked as far as I can see. There’s a line-up at the stairs to the door to get in. I pop in to have a look: a sardine can, no room to move even. (Noticed the absence of face masks). I put my neighbour’s walker back in the car. Nope, we’re not going in. We didn’t stay long; we didn’t stay at all.

Usually that Fair will have 25-30 folks at anyone time. This was a crowd five times that size. Folks obviously made the drive from town, a thirty-minute drive away.  There was an excited buzz in the line-up. It said, “After three years, we just want, urgently, our normal Christmas season back”.  

Now it’s the Season of Epiphany. As I draft this piece in mid-November, I do not know if there will be a “normal” Christmas, 2022. I am not a catastrophist, but aware of challenges that will befall the locals, let alone the world, between Advent and Epiphany.

I too looked forward to the Season, the liturgies, the social occasions. I had my candlesticks polished before the First in Advent and the outside lights up and on.

Epiphany is not just about the Star westward leading. It’s still proceeding. Insights may be sudden but leaning into them may be a process. You may have heard of T S Elliot’s Magi. He returns to his own country “in the East” after the long and difficult journeys to and from Bethlehem. He would do it again. The birth of the new king has transformed his life. But it means ”bitter agony”, back in his own culture, he doesn’t fit. He’s so changed, he’s “no longer at ease with the old dispensation”.

In December, the malls were packed and consumer confidence was “robust”. Now the glitter and merriment is gone and more harsh realities are ahead, (always remembering though that for some, Christmas is blue, including for some parishioners). We may want to go back to “normal” but actually was there ever a “normal”? Prior to the fall of 2019, there was a climate crisis, wars, racism, social inequality not to mention chronic diseases.

Writing to the Ephesians, Paul tells of a great mystery that was made known to him by a revelation, an insight, or epiphany, into the mystery of Christ. Paul was writing from prison. Isaiah tells of a people who walked in deep darkness and “on them has the Light shined”.

What are our epiphanies now? Can we live in the light and also process the pain of not being in the world of merriment and glitter, knowing there is no normal ahead? Can we line up on the stairs and enter the door of courageous vision that is not celebration?

My neighbor and I laugh about it now. We say, “Well, we did have an outing”. That’s merriment after disappointment. May the season of Epiphany bring strong light that does not blind. Robust spending not required.

Hannah Main- van der Kamp lives south of Powell River. Her tree always goes to the composter on January 7.  Reluctant to take her outside lights down, keeps them up longer for her neighbour. Sparkle!

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Galette des rois – Epiphany Cake and Crown (chocolate or almond?)

Photo ID : 1286450740

Credit: Margouillat Photos