January 10, 2010

In Mexico, children eagerly await for Epiphany on January 6 where the Magi, not Santa delivers the gifts.

On the eve of Epiphany, the children parade through town dressed as Wise Men Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar.   Then everyone gathers to eat a sweet bread in the shape of a wreath. In this bread is hidden a small clay doll representing the baby Jesus. Whoever gets the doll in their slice hosts the next year’s party at the end of Christmas season.  On the next day, January 6, children open little gifts as a reminder of the frankincense, gold, and myrrh given to baby Jesus.

 

What kind of gifts did you receive this year?

A few days before Christmas, the SC Highway Patrol handed me a gift through my front auto window and told me I needed to mail in my gift to them no later than January 11. 

The day after Christmas a neighborhood dog saw my muddy Sunday dress shoes on the front porch and took his new Christmas gift with him home.  While one of my new Hushpuppy shoes was located on Old Bush River Road near the cemetery, the other is still waiting on its Epiphany.

 

Gifts come in many forms and from many directions.

The gift of a new year finds many of us making resolutions.  This tradition comes to us via the ancient Babylonians.

 

You know the old saying about resolutions: “Don’t worry about keeping all of them.  You only have to deal with them until mid February and then you can give them up for Lent!”

 

What kind of gifts will you share with others in 2010?

Let us make space in our lives for God, and listen to what God is saying to us.

That can help us focus on what is really significant in our lives.

Once a person listens to God everything will be much clearer.

Listen to the salutation of the dawn.                                     

 

Look to this day, for it is the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all the realities and truth of existence:

the joy of growth, the splendor of action, the glory of power.     

For yesterday is but a memory, and tomorrow a vision,                                                                     but today well-lived makes every yesterday a memory of happiness and every tomorrow a vision

of hope."                                                                                             (Sanskirt Poem, 2000 years old)