And they returned by a different way...

This Sunday will mark both the START of a New Year AND the liturgical Sunday for Epiphany. The gospel text for the day has to do with the arrival of the Magi to greet the baby Jesus ~ who were not revered wise people but astrologers of left overs from the Psychic Hotline ~ and who leave Christ to go home "by a different way."  They left different...

I've loved that play on words for decades and think it has something to say for our generation. And while I don't know where my conversation for Sunday will lead us (this has been mostly a down-time and non-working week and I haven't yet prepared for worship) two thoughts from Fr. Richard Rohr bear sharing.

+ First, he observes that only a religion that is able to laugh at itself is healthy.

G.K. Chesterton is a great hero among conservative Catholics, because he wrote a book called ORTHODOXY.  Yet he said many things that contemporary conservatives in both our church and our politics would very much disagree with.  Among the best. he said that:  "The test of a good religion is whether or not it can laugh at itself."   The lack of self critical thinking, the inability to laugh at oneself or one's group, the general inability to ever appreciate what is right in front of us, is for me the most unattractive thing about fundamentalists, retro Catholics, and ideological Republicans.  If they have the truth, they surely are not enjoying it!  Nor do they make it very attractive or desirable for the rest of us.  The impossible burden of "conserving" the whole truth does not leave much time for smiling, it seems.

+ And second, only those religious people willing to risk intimacy are trustworthy.

I think that many of us men, celibate men even more, are very afraid of intimacy.  I would define intimacy as the ability to mutually share one's needs, one's wounds, or one's weaknesses with another person.  The sharing of our inner or interior world ("intimus" in Latin) is always a risk, usually a fear of rejection, and thus many of us never go there.  It might change our self image.  But I am going to make a rather absolute statement:  people who risk intimacy are invariably happier and much more real people. They feel like they have lots of "handles" that allow others to hold on to them, and that allow them to hold onto themselves!  People who avoid intimacy are always, and I mean always, imprisoned in a small and circular world. 

These two truths resonate with me at the deepest level:  I no longer trust people who can't laugh at themselves ~ and ~ I am very guarded with those who won't/can't risk being open and honest.  If my own wounds have taught me anything over the years it is that everybody hurts, almost none of our wounds are unique and their weight can become a little lighter if we're willing to carefully and appropriately share them in humility. 

Some of us "lead with our wounds" as one feminist used to say ~ that is, we let our brokenness define and shape us ~ when the truth is that we are bigger than the pain. Others retreat into self-pity or bitterness ~ they want somebody else to fix them ~ when healing can only come from the Lord.  And still others never find God's healing grace because... they aren't really looking. They may be busy, but they aren't looking for God.

That's one of the insights of Epiphany:  the Magi find the "new born king" because they were paying attention and took the time to start the search.  As my theological mentors in the Grateful Dead used to say:  keep on truckin!