Magi
“Home is where we start from.”
We scanned the stars, but found in them
Scarce food for such a hunger. In our pools
They were no nearer, but they were pure
And so satisfied, for a while, our thirst
For the bright eternal. By day our visions
Mocked us: they had not the gentle tangibility
Of roses, or goblets, or our roofs
At evening when the patterned infinite
Untouchable troubled our souls.
*
This star was different. We followed,
Did not dare to hope-knew not what to hope
Or if the restless dream was more
Than our own inescapable interstices.
When we arrived, after long doubt
And journeying and sunrises
We wanted to think of as meaningful,
We only recognized the end of the journey
When we felt we had reached its beginning.
The common forms which at home had been
A dull ache without revelation, now broke us with joy
As we read the galaxies in his impossible eyes
And worshipped the bodily God.
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It's Advent--one of my favorite times of the year. Every day and every night takes on a new meaning, for it is one day and one night Closer; not just to a revelation but to The Revelation. Today, as illustrated--if feebly--by the above, I have been especially struck by the need for Incarnation. I have always been in awe of simple Being--of leaves and tree branches and the edges of things, but while things are in themselves beautiful they stir me also with an inexpressible longing. Every leaf is a revelation and an ache. For there must be in the ultimate stuff of things something deeply personal and particular; yet joined also with this is the need for eternity, infinity, purity, the glory of the perfect Form unconstrained by the physical. The Greeks and Romans felt that need for the incarnate god--but never could fashion for themselves gods quite worthy of their worship. Virgil cries out that there are "tears in things," and from the depths of human memory come the tragically frivolous gods of the disconsolate Homer. We all desire nothing more than to worship, utterly and with the whole passion of our being, something not only beatiful but bodily. Someone not only perfect, but as tangible as our hands and our faces and the dirty, frozen paths that we wander in the frigid December.
TS Eliot said, "home is where we start from." These familiar, physical things, so dear and yet somehow so insufficient, are where we start from. And at the end of the journey may we find at last that our hearts, as well as our minds, have been correct, and Truth has a Face which looks on us--and loves.
If I have seen anything, and if I have communicated anything of the vision, it is by His grace.
Joy and peace to all.