My 9th grade English teacher was a vocabulary badass. She assigned words (“copious,” “masticate,” “defenestrate”) to individual students whose job it became to teach the class their definitions in a memorable way. When we got to the word “epiphany,” I had heard it before.
For me, because I had grown up in a pretty liturgical United Methodist Church, “Epiphany” was a season. Catholics and Orthodox Christians and most mainline Protestants celebrate the day of Epiphany on January 6, the first day after the 12 days of Christmas. Epiphany remembers the wise men (who were probably astrologers) visiting the baby (or possibly toddler) Jesus. They follow the signs in the stars, which tell them a new king has been born, and they find him: Jesus. The sort-of-bastard son of a poor woman, living far from home and about to have to flee farther still, to Egypt, because the sitting king, threatened by this baby, wants him dead.
However, none of this was much help to me in English class. I was pretty sure Mrs. Barnes’ definition wouldn’t have anything do with gold, frankincense, or myrrh, let alone jealous, murderous kings or tiny, glowing babies.
An epiphany--my classmate taught us that day while flicking the classroom lights off and on in a completely annoying way--is a lightbulb moment. A sudden flash of knowledge, a bright vision of clarity.
As it turns out, this does have something to do with the Epiphany we celebrated at Christ United Methodist Church. Epiphany is so-named because it is considered the day when the lightbulb went on, when Jesus’ identity as God’s son, the king, was illumined for the world. The season of Epiphany, of living in the light of this revelation, continues until Ash Wednesday, which falls this year on February 18, but often falls much later. But that’s a conversation for another time.
I am a person of faith. Sort of. Truth be told, I’m often not sure what I believe. I guess that makes me something of an agnostic, but I don’t usually claim that title because I’m not even sure enough about being unsure. I grew up United Methodist, as I’ve said, but then I journeyed through nondenominationalism, Pentecostalism, fundamentalism, and Reformed traditions before enrolling in United Methodist seminary and becoming a Presbyterian at age 23.
Three years later, I married a United Methodist pastor. I can’t say I ever thought I’d be a pastor’s wife. As a feminist and a person ambivalent about faith, it’s a role I am always learning how to define for myself.
In addition to my United Methodist husband, I have an Orthodox sister, almost-Catholic parents, and other close family members who are Lutheran, Missionary Baptist, Mormon, and Evangelical.
And then there’s me. Though faith was such a part of my childhood, though its patterns and practices have formed me from before birth and continue to structure my life now, I have often felt uncomfortable with it.
Put another way: I am not a person prone to much epiphany.
This is true of my life as a person of faith; though for years I sought holy visions and listened for voices from the clouds, I have never really found anything of the sort. It is also true of my life as a parent. When my daughter was born, I didn’t make it to the swooning-with-love moment until weeks later, in the car, listening to an odd and irreverent Ben Folds song. It made me think of her growing, mine, over time, and I was suddenly spluttering and crying and trying to tell her that she was making me into a mother, and that it was one of the most painful transformations I’d ever undergone, and that I loved her for it. So much.
My daughter is now four-and-a-half, and I also have a son who is 20 months old. My love for my children is as powerful as I always thought it would be, but mothering them also involves a lot I didn’t anticipate: heartache, annoyance, boredom, fury, mind-numbing incessance.
And church. A lot of church. Despite my poor record with epiphany, despite my uncertainty about my own belief, both of my children have been baptized at beautiful services in churches where their father, my husband, was pastor. Both were baptized by their grandfather, my husband’s father, also a pastor. They have been to more church services than most people get in all of childhood; they have logged more hours hearing hymns or sermon test-runs than I can count. They are pastor’s children, God help us.
So why? If I don’t know what I believe, if I’m not a person prone to the light and clarity of epiphany, then why build my family’s life around these weird, old practices and this unlikely, ancient story? Mostly because I don’t know how not to. Despite all the moments I’ve wanted to leave the life of faith, despite all my moments and hours and days of unbelief, I can’t seem to stop coming back. This story, this calendar, this marking of time, like it or not, has a kind of hold on me that reaches all the way to my children.
As people, we have liturgies. We mark time. We like patterns because they orient us. Doing some of the same things over and over again helps us know where and who we are.
So now I am embarking on a year of reflection. Each liturgical holiday and season this year, I will wonder about what it has to do with parenting, especially parenting young children. I do not know what I will find. I am not expecting epiphany; maybe I will be surprised. But mostly, I have found that knowledge (dare I say revelation?), whether about faith or motherhood or anything else that matters, is more of a coming-to-know, a slow move toward light over time.
Truth be told, I feel a little more at home in the dark days of Ash Wednesday and Lent that wait a few weeks off. But for now, I will try to walk in the flickering light of Epiphany. It is a season of light before darkness, clarity before confusion, revelation before obfuscation.
One of my daughter’s first words was “light.” In every room, no matter where we were, she would point, awe on her face, and whisper, “Light!” I remember thinking, Someday I want to tell her about herself as a baby: “You always pointed out the light.” I thought maybe this was some unique characteristic, some herald of her life and personality to come. But three years later, my son does precisely the same thing, with precisely the same reverence and awe. Maybe it is in all of us, this wonder at light. Maybe it is even in me.
For me, because I had grown up in a pretty liturgical United Methodist Church, “Epiphany” was a season. Catholics and Orthodox Christians and most mainline Protestants celebrate the day of Epiphany on January 6, the first day after the 12 days of Christmas. Epiphany remembers the wise men (who were probably astrologers) visiting the baby (or possibly toddler) Jesus. They follow the signs in the stars, which tell them a new king has been born, and they find him: Jesus. The sort-of-bastard son of a poor woman, living far from home and about to have to flee farther still, to Egypt, because the sitting king, threatened by this baby, wants him dead.
However, none of this was much help to me in English class. I was pretty sure Mrs. Barnes’ definition wouldn’t have anything do with gold, frankincense, or myrrh, let alone jealous, murderous kings or tiny, glowing babies.
An epiphany--my classmate taught us that day while flicking the classroom lights off and on in a completely annoying way--is a lightbulb moment. A sudden flash of knowledge, a bright vision of clarity.
As it turns out, this does have something to do with the Epiphany we celebrated at Christ United Methodist Church. Epiphany is so-named because it is considered the day when the lightbulb went on, when Jesus’ identity as God’s son, the king, was illumined for the world. The season of Epiphany, of living in the light of this revelation, continues until Ash Wednesday, which falls this year on February 18, but often falls much later. But that’s a conversation for another time.
I am a person of faith. Sort of. Truth be told, I’m often not sure what I believe. I guess that makes me something of an agnostic, but I don’t usually claim that title because I’m not even sure enough about being unsure. I grew up United Methodist, as I’ve said, but then I journeyed through nondenominationalism, Pentecostalism, fundamentalism, and Reformed traditions before enrolling in United Methodist seminary and becoming a Presbyterian at age 23.
Three years later, I married a United Methodist pastor. I can’t say I ever thought I’d be a pastor’s wife. As a feminist and a person ambivalent about faith, it’s a role I am always learning how to define for myself.
In addition to my United Methodist husband, I have an Orthodox sister, almost-Catholic parents, and other close family members who are Lutheran, Missionary Baptist, Mormon, and Evangelical.
And then there’s me. Though faith was such a part of my childhood, though its patterns and practices have formed me from before birth and continue to structure my life now, I have often felt uncomfortable with it.
Put another way: I am not a person prone to much epiphany.
This is true of my life as a person of faith; though for years I sought holy visions and listened for voices from the clouds, I have never really found anything of the sort. It is also true of my life as a parent. When my daughter was born, I didn’t make it to the swooning-with-love moment until weeks later, in the car, listening to an odd and irreverent Ben Folds song. It made me think of her growing, mine, over time, and I was suddenly spluttering and crying and trying to tell her that she was making me into a mother, and that it was one of the most painful transformations I’d ever undergone, and that I loved her for it. So much.
My daughter is now four-and-a-half, and I also have a son who is 20 months old. My love for my children is as powerful as I always thought it would be, but mothering them also involves a lot I didn’t anticipate: heartache, annoyance, boredom, fury, mind-numbing incessance.
And church. A lot of church. Despite my poor record with epiphany, despite my uncertainty about my own belief, both of my children have been baptized at beautiful services in churches where their father, my husband, was pastor. Both were baptized by their grandfather, my husband’s father, also a pastor. They have been to more church services than most people get in all of childhood; they have logged more hours hearing hymns or sermon test-runs than I can count. They are pastor’s children, God help us.
So why? If I don’t know what I believe, if I’m not a person prone to the light and clarity of epiphany, then why build my family’s life around these weird, old practices and this unlikely, ancient story? Mostly because I don’t know how not to. Despite all the moments I’ve wanted to leave the life of faith, despite all my moments and hours and days of unbelief, I can’t seem to stop coming back. This story, this calendar, this marking of time, like it or not, has a kind of hold on me that reaches all the way to my children.
As people, we have liturgies. We mark time. We like patterns because they orient us. Doing some of the same things over and over again helps us know where and who we are.
So now I am embarking on a year of reflection. Each liturgical holiday and season this year, I will wonder about what it has to do with parenting, especially parenting young children. I do not know what I will find. I am not expecting epiphany; maybe I will be surprised. But mostly, I have found that knowledge (dare I say revelation?), whether about faith or motherhood or anything else that matters, is more of a coming-to-know, a slow move toward light over time.
Truth be told, I feel a little more at home in the dark days of Ash Wednesday and Lent that wait a few weeks off. But for now, I will try to walk in the flickering light of Epiphany. It is a season of light before darkness, clarity before confusion, revelation before obfuscation.
One of my daughter’s first words was “light.” In every room, no matter where we were, she would point, awe on her face, and whisper, “Light!” I remember thinking, Someday I want to tell her about herself as a baby: “You always pointed out the light.” I thought maybe this was some unique characteristic, some herald of her life and personality to come. But three years later, my son does precisely the same thing, with precisely the same reverence and awe. Maybe it is in all of us, this wonder at light. Maybe it is even in me.
