At Christmastime
each year here in the United States we will often see nativity scenes, especially
in people’s front lawns and in churchyards. They range from simple scenes that depict only Jesus, Mary and Joseph to elaborate dioramas that include a full
cast of characters. In these larger versions, in addition to the shepherds, angels and animals, we may also see three other figures, often in decidedly more
colorful dress, who are intended to represent those called The Three Wise Men,
the Magi, or the Three Kings from the East. We are told in the Bible that the
Magi navigated by means of a star, got a piece of intelligence from
King Herod along the way, and arrived at the scene bearing gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh.
Although I’m not
much of a churchgoer, I have long been fascinated by the element in the story
of the Magi traveling at some risk and expense to see a manifestation of divine
light and love, and I’ve wondered about the gifts they deemed appropriate for
the occasion.
In some
traditions, the arrival of the Magi is celebrated as Epiphany, which comes from
a Greek word meaning ‘appearance.’ And the first thing I notice is that we all have our own epiphanies: times
when things are illuminated for us and appear in a new light, sometimes even showing up where there had been no light at all. Such moments glow like an inner crèche, and
by virtue of the newness and possibility inherent in them, they often seem to gather
their own assembly of witnesses, both within us and beyond.
So move a little
closer in, angels, shepherds, and magi: this little epiphany is mine. I see in
the gifts of the Magi a good indicator, poetically speaking, of the gifts to
bear with us as we approach any epiphany, place of emergence, or illuminated
way of being in the world.
Let’s start with
myrrh and frankincense. In origin, these are the dried sap of trees. Sap is the
mobile, fluid element that flows up from the roots clasping the Earth and down
from the leaves outstretched to gather light from the nearest star. Moving
between these polarities, tree sap draws qualities from both as it runs in its
daily circuit between the two. Interrupt this movement by wounding the trees’
bark and the resinous sap emerges. In their primary use, myrrh and frankincense
are vaporized in fire—their fragrances are said to raise the vibration and
sanctify a space, hence their use in ceremony.
The sap of trees
is literally their lifeblood, the active, connecting element that bridges every
apparent polarity and in doing so supports the life of the tree in all its
dimensions. The ability of a tree to hold the land is funded by its capacity to
reach for the sun and air, and the ability of a tree to reach for the sun and
air is funded by its ability to hold the land. The sap is the transporter of
these energies and resources. Likewise, the unity of the trunk is supported by
the multiplicity of roots and branches. The flexibility and the exposure of the
leaves is supported by the more rigid and protected quality of the wood, and
again vice versa. The dried sap of these trees thus embodies the essence of
this active process of living, growing and yes, even being wounded in a world
of chance and change.
We
humans do much the same thing in our growth as we actively span and unify the many
dimensions and qualities of our existence. Consider: our capacity for thought
is affected by whether or not we ate breakfast and what it was, and the development
of high art and skill grows from our passion and animal ferocity. Our
craziest dreams, subtlest reasoning, and most finely attuned feelings are
needed by turns to find balance in our awareness amidst the tumult of our
experience. We balance within and without, left and right brain, action and
contemplation, work and play, sleeping and waking, the changing seasons, and all of the contingencies and conditions of our lives. And, as we dynamically unify and
draw energy from our often rough-and-tumble living and weathering of various
kinds of storms, we create a flow with unique qualities within us, just as
trees do. We gain character.
To complete the
metaphor here, the distilled essence of our lives in the world—what we
learn, how we grow, how it shapes us and even how it hurts us—is central to the
gifts we bear on the way to our personal epiphanies. Recognizing the value of living
amidst all these opposing forces, ups and downs, bumps, bruises, paradoxes and
contradictions, is key to carrying our troubles as gifts. Remember that the myrrh
tree oozes that sweetness from its wounds, standing out in the sun on the Horn
of Africa.
The counterpoint
to all the dynamism we see in the production of myrrh and frankincense, of
course, is gold. If myrrh and frankincense embody the essence of a present-tense
life astraddle numerous polarities, a temporal world of contingency and risk, gold
could be said to represent the state in which there never was a polarity to
unify: the eternal, the unchanging, the untarnishable spirit. Gold is
chemically inert, unaffected, and unchanging. This is why it can sit at the
bottom of the sea in the wreckage of a Spanish galleon for 500 years and still
have value. As the most malleable metal, pure gold can be hammered into endless
changes in outward form, yet inwardly it remains the same.
So consider the
contrast here: Gold is a metal forged in the heart of a dying star billions of
years ago; myrrh and frankincense, on the other hand, are the dried sap that
oozes from cuts in the bark of trees living on the surface of planet earth
today. In most uses, gold is endlessly recyclable. Myrrh and frankincense go up
in smoke and vanish.
Each of these
gifts embodies its own kind of preciousness and energetic signature. We all have
a place within us that is golden, unchanging and eternal. Everyone also has
that distilled essence of character arrived at by bearing our gold into a world
filled with dynamic and ever-changing polarities. Taken together, appreciated
and honored each in their own ways, these gifts make for an ideal combination
to bring to any epiphany or point of illumination in our lives. In fact, to
bear these gifts in full recognition of their value tends to draw us onward
toward these epiphanies.
Yet there seems
to be a tendency to separate them. It’s strange to consider it, but do we
really think the Magi would have been better advised to leave the myrrh and
frankincense at home and just bring some extra gold? Would this have improved the
gift? I don’t think so. And neither
do we value ourselves rightly if we only consider the quality of soul within
us, leaving out our connection to life’s exigencies and temporal flow, and the character we have gained
by it, or on the other hand to only offer what we’ve gained by living and not that pure and untarnishable element we brought with us into
life.
The Bible story tells
us that Joseph was told in a dream to flee into Egypt. Hearing this, the
reasoning mind might suggest that maybe the family could have used that extra
gold! But that’s not how these stories work. For 2000 years we’ve read about myrrh,
frankincense, and gold. The translators found words for these things in other
languages and apparently saw nothing in these words to threaten the power structures
that employed them. So the inner message stood unchanged. That's the subversive beauty of true poetry.
I’ve often felt
that this part of the Bible story was underappreciated, because it says so much
about how to approach an illuminated way of being. We absolutely must bring our inner
gold with us, our assurance of something eternal, that steady and sure place
deep within us that knows our value and our everlasting place in the order of
things. By means of this silent, weighty ballast, we right ourselves time and
again as the winds of change blow. The security that this kind of gold offers
also strengthens our ability to offer it up to these golden moments in the
certainty that we will ultimately be enriched instead of diminished by the
encounter. However, an equally precious and worthy offering is our unique
harvest of living in the world, and the beauty we have wrought from this
encounter: our lessons, our scars, our character, our history, and the essential
tone, feel and fragrance that belong to our unique lives.
Fundamentally, in any epiphany, we can only offer what we are, and,
we are all of this: We are the eternal enriched by the temporal, and we are
perfection itself somehow perfecting itself .
In a way, then,
since this is what we are, we bring this gift to every life encounter. Further,
since we are part of the cosmos becoming aware of itself, our appreciation for
all of the gifts we bring catalyzes their reception even when the “recipient”
to which we are offering ourselves is a relationship, a place, a moment -- in
short, to any personal epiphany or illuminated
encounter in the world. If we are to follow the example of the Magi as we navigate toward these epiphanies, we must value our offering: loving ourselves as golden eternal souls who never lost connection with the
divine, and in full appreciation for all our quirky eccentricities, our foibles and talents, errors and
inspirations, and in both our misbegotten motivations and our nobility in word
and deed. Loving ourselves in this comprehensive way primes the universe to
receive us in kind, or perhaps it would be better to say that doing so aligns
us with the cosmos and its unfolding and magnificent YES! And we can carry these gifts into any illuminated moment, be it a crowded bus, a thought or
feeling that comes at the end of a long day, a walk down a forest path leading
to a waterfall, or an encounter in a barn in an obscure little Middle Eastern town.
To every moment
we make an offering. Aware that we are in an encounter with the divine, we can
come as the Magi did: in adoration, and bearing gifts. We then behold and thus
participate in the miracle.
