Happy twelfth day of Christmas to all of you!  Take notes on the appropriate festive mood from my camel friend here.

“Epiphany celebrates the God who unites us from east and west, north and south. I have seen in my own family how God has united a mother and father from cultures, families, and religions that were worlds apart. In that most surprising joining together, the trajectory of our family has been brought into the expanding promise of God. My parents leave out a number of wise men (and their camels) year-round, perched in their colorful robes. Even now as I walk through the halls of my parents’ home, I pause to reflect on their presence in this house of converts. My mother, a Lebanese Druze, traveled a great distance to find the path of Jesus, and these wise men act as signatories to that crucial part of our family history where foreigners and outsiders are welcomed as family members. In more ways than I can ever explain, the celebration of Epiphany is our story. It is the strange and wonderful trip into the heart of God from a world that felt millions of miles away.”