EPIPHANIES: personal and otherwise

1. In church tradition, the word “epiphany” refers to…

A) A pronounced disinterest or lack of enthusiasm

B) A crude reference to the physiology of certain of Jesus’ disciples

C) A brand of acoustic guitar

D) None of the above

2) I always heard that “epiphany” meant…

A) “The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles”

B) “A sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something”

C) A disclosure of truth that could not have been predicted or controlled

D) All of the above

3) Epiphaneia= revelation; disclosure; manifestation; discovery; “aha”…etc.

The “Epiphany Season” in the church year= readings/prayers/music that are particularly “epiphanic” , i.e. reveal the mission and identity of God in Christ.

4) 1^st Sunday in Epiphany= Baptism of Christ. A paradigmatic event. The heavens “split open” (schizomai) and the spirit-world/real world dichotomy is shattered. Not a “public” event- seen only by Jesus? How could the Evangelist have known? When do the heavens split open for us?

5) “Thin Places”. In the Celtic spiritual tradition there are shrines, caves, springs of water, and groves of trees where people experienced a “thinning” of the “wall” between the sacred and the mundane. In 1931, Mahatma Gandhi wrote in A Spiritual Message to the World

“There is an indefinable, mysterious power that pervades everything. I feel it, though I do not see it. It is this unseen power that makes itself felt and defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses. It transcends the senses.”

6) I knew “thin places” before I knew about God or the church, or about Celtic Spirituality. The spiritual path which I have followed, and which I can commend to others, is one that begins with this primal, “pre-religious” experience of The Sacred.

At Muir Woods in California…

we walked silently among the ancient trees …the day before, we had visited Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and walked the Labyrinth in silence…at Muir Woods, the silence walked tangibly with us, and the tourists lowered their voices in the same liturgical sort of way…the next day, among the tourist crowds at Fisherman’s Wharf, one of our group was moved to say, “sometimes it seems that everyplace is thin.”

“Thin places” do not appeal to everyone. Many people brush up against such experiences, and find them too unsettling. The most successful mega-churches devise their worship so as to seem familiar and not particularly “religious.” I believe that an experience that is not the least bit spooky or strange cannot be epiphanic.

“Easter occurs, again and again, in this opening-up of a void, the sense of absence which questions our egocentric aspirations and our longing for ‘tidy drama’; it occurs when we find in Jesus not a dead friend but a living stranger…(p.74) The risen Jesus is strange and yet deeply familiar, a question to what we have known, loved, and desired, and yet continuous with the friend we have known and loved. His strangeness and recognizability are both shocking, standing as they do in such inseparable connection.” (p. 84) Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel, Rowan Williams, Pilgrim press, 2002)

7) “Parable” and “Myth” (John Dominic Crossan, cited in Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals by Herbert Anderson & Edward Foley)

A) Myth= stories/ideas that reinforce our idea of what is normal and real.

B) Parable= stories/ideas that call into question our idea of reality.

To be epiphanic, there must be some element of parable, but how can there be parables when all the myths have been discredited or forgotten? The task of the church is to re-inflate the myths sufficiently so as to make the parables distinguishable.

8) If the above makes little or no sense to you, don’t let it bother you. If you pay attention to your own experiences, and allow them to be called into question, you are doing just fine. If all experiences seem the same, and that is just fine with you, it’s no wonder you think what I am talking about is nonsense.

9) What is the difference between an “epiphany” and a “stupid idea?”

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