My husband Daniel and I stood on the brow of a mountain, in the glorious glow that can be felt in the redwood forest as the sun sets. Characteristic of the coastal Santa Cruz mountains, the evening chill was setting in quickly while we gazed to the west, watching the sun set and waiting to see the remarkable celestial event known as the Great Comet. It had been 27 years since a comet this beautiful was so very visible to us all. And this comet will not swing low to us, this close to our Earth, for another 80,000 earth years. It was mid-October when we encountered the marvelous comet known as Comet Tsuchi Shan-ATLAS, with a prominent tail and even a sun tail, known as an anti-tail, a rare tail that points towards the sun.
We stood silently, barely breathing and searching for this remarkable visitor. It had only been discovered the previous year. Learned people, more patient than I, from as close as San Diego, and as far as China and South Africa, had been steadily watching the journey of this comet. Modern-day Magi, the three wise men who came bearing gifts for the baby Jesus, and these wise ones were also alerted through dreams not to return to King Herod’s court, thereby giving the little family time to flee persecution. The story of this flight was also prompted by a dream that Joseph had, which led him to make choices based on the dream. This story is depicted in Matthew 2:1-15. I wondered if they had been watching a similar bright light, seeing a sun tail point towards the earth. I wondered if they felt the same awe and wonder that we felt.
I, too, wanted to follow the course of this comet, wondering if another prophetic vision was playing out in front of us all. In the weeks that followed, I gained crisp clarity about my call and public ministry. It was an epiphany of sorts. My work in that beautiful region had come to a quiet close, and it was time for me to allow space to ponder, to trust that my public ministry would continue in new and life-giving ways. But I had to wait, and pray, for Way to open. Surely, I was called once more to trust in God, in yet another revelation, the appearance of Jesus Christ, to guide me along my Way, even as I guide others along their Way.
Epiphany is not a customary Quaker celebration. It is known as 12th night, the end of the 12 days of Christmas that conclude at Epiphany, when the three wise men, the magi, astronomers, and leaders from the far corners of the known world, find their way to the infant Jesus. They bring with them gold, frankincense, and myrrh to honor this child, and also to foreshadow his journey into death and resurrection.
In early Christianity, Epiphany evolved into a tradition, a time to celebrate the major moments when it was revealed that God had come in the manifestation of Christ. These include this adoration of the Magi, Jesus presented at the great Temple in Jerusalem and being baptized by John in the Jordan river, and the first public miracle of turning water into wine during the wedding at Cana. In short, Twelfth Night was an occasion for more wonder and celebration, in the deepening time of winter. Since the winter solstice brings the promise of the return of the light, Twelfth Night offers the opportunity to celebrate life and unity with Spirit.
Advent is an easy season to acknowledge, because we know it is a season of preparation for the celebration of the birth of Christ concluding with Christmas, but what about these weeks after Christmas? What does it really mean to encounter the birth of Christ within our hearts? How many of us wonder about taking a journey or some pilgrimage to connect with or reconnect with the Sacred?
Friends, as we move from winter into spring, take a moment to ponder Epiphany in your own hearts, bodies, minds, and spirits. Pay attention to your inner wisdom through your dreams. Allow yourself to take a sort of pilgrimage, to reflect upon experiencing God yourself, made manifest as the incarnate Christ. The Epiphany story is a story of pilgrimage, a part of the western Christian Christmas tradition, and there are many ways to think about the story of the Three Wise Men ‒ the Magi or kings ‒ and their encounter with the Divine incarnation. One way that speaks to my condition is to wonder about how encountering the Christ child within our own being can change us ‒ not just a ‘feel good’ change, but a profound and lasting change that leads us to live our deepest truth out loud.
When Friends discern a leading or calling and then allow time to season it, we experience a sense of the essential nature of the leading. It may be an intuitive sense; it may be clarity of thought as seen in science in discovering the path of a very rare comet or alignment of the planets; it may come in dreams much as we hear that the Magi dreamed the warning that King Herod, willing to maintain the status quo of empire in all its oppression of the people, was willing to harm the baby Jesus to prevent the prophecy from coming alive. In any of these cases, it is Spirit, the Seed, our Inner Light or Guide, the Inward Christ that has come to illuminate hearts and minds, strengthen our resolve, and offer solutions to life-threatening dangers so that we may live ever more deeply to witness the wonder and power of the Holy in our everyday lives.
The month after I witnessed the comet, I had occasion to offer my public ministry to a small coastal congregation in California. After the service and during a wonderful meal together, I shared a dream I’d had just days before. In this dream, I was in a similar setting to their community. In a community kitchen we were preparing food and Jesus was there, among us. He was warm, loving, and laughing, as we worked alongside one another. Then the dream shifted to all of us walking in the desert, a desert very much like the one in Galilee. Again, there was laughter and warmth and a different purpose: we were going to a city to witness for love’s sake, for justice, to heal and to care for those in need of care. Those gathered around the table listening to my dream were all leaning forward. The dream resonated with them. Daniel and I lead a Dream Group and worked this dream of mine and I came to clarity on my call to this chapter of my call to public ministry In this time of rising autocratic rule, anxiety and uncertainty, the dream seemed to bring a sort of knowing, clarity, and confidence as to how we are to be, as the days ahead deepen into strife and oppression. As I worked with my dream I knew that Spirit is calling me to participate in the emerging resistance with calm, confidence, even with joy. What are you dreaming? My dreams and witness lead me to join FCNL in advocating for all beings, our environment, climate justice for lands, seas and air. Look to the heavens and look inward, Friends; look and listen deeply so that you may see that brilliance of Love alive in our every moment, waking and sleeping. Keep notes on the dreams, nudges and glimmers that become evident with this attunement. This at-one-ment where the eternal now becomes available for us who have cultivated the ears to hear and the eyes to see, the hearts to feel and the belly to know. My Friend Rex Ambler quoted a little- known 17th-century Friend, William Dewsbury: “… in spirit and in truth, and in sincerity in the inward parts everyone take heed to the light in your consciences.” Look for the light, in the night skies, in your own dreams, as well as listening to the dreams of others. Daniel and I share a practice of dreamwork and we teach this dreamwork to others.
Prepare yourselves for these further days of powers and principalities, of empire. Cultivate your prayer and meditation life, cultivate your sacred world of dreams, so that you will be awake to the signs and signals of the promptings of Love and truth in your hearts and prepare your faith in action
Start a Dream journal, join a Dream Group, come to your Meeting for Worship with minds open, and spacious, open to Love’s revelatory, revolutionary nudges. The world needs us as much today as in the 1640s. In this awakened state, we can amplify a faith rooted in our direct experience with the light, bring a 21st-century relevance alive in our public and private lives, and remain alert to the freshness of new light within us, amongst us, between us all.