Revelation

Back in 1981 I took a course in Byzantine history when I was a guest student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  During a chapter on mosaic and art, the professor briefly touched on an interesting symbol--in the Byzantine mosaics, behind the figures of immense power, Justin and Theodora and all the forgotten functionaries, there is always the partly drawn curtain.  The instructor said this semi drawn drape was supposed to imply the presence of something sacred, not seen, barely understood.  It was symbology, semiotics, spoken and unspoken, all in one small image behind the giant icons with their immense halos  and eyes that gazed with amazing and unblinking intensity into the Beyond.  But there it was: that half drawn curtain, with a darkened space behind, a veil between here and there.

Now it is Christmas Eve.  The scholars inform that Jesus was actually born in the spring and that Christmas is merely an integration of pagan winter solstice festivals into a general religious festival to bring the unwashed on board with the Roman hegemony.  Maybe so; but tradition shapes conciousness, and now it is December 24th and I am thinking about the birth of Christ.  Luke's story is in our minds:  the young couple, traveling to another city to report for census and taxation, existing under the hand of a foreign tyranny.  Then the panic and immediacy of childbirth,  the parents searching for shelter, protection, food; the stench and squalor of a stable, the labors of a mother and then suddenly, quietly, immediately . . . life.  An infant, defenseless in the face of an angry world, surrounded by draft animals and an exhausted mother and father, sleeps, not knowing what his existence will carve into the marble face of Rome.  The shepherds appear telling the story of celestial visitation, and wise men bearing gifts, with their brilliant star that leads them to search for this new King.  We all know this story, and have heard it so many times, but it still powerful and resonant.

And so since then Christianity stumbles along, waiting for the new revelation, the lifting of the curtain, the new Messiah.

Tonight, I went out into the desert.  It is quiet here in Arizona; we are in between winter storms and wind that rips the sand away from the rocky ground; indeed, a recent dust storm caused the deaths of four people.  But now it is quiet, so still that I can hear the half movements of the birds nesting in the acacia tree behind our home.  The stars shine with almost no twinkle because the air is so dry and still and a half moon is just past zenith.  You get the sense that the planet is . . . well . . . waiting.  What curtain is drawn, what monster or god lurks in the darkness just behind the fabric?

Or is it even that important?  I am struggling now--so many things--the loss of a parent, the illness of a spouse, challenges of a career, worries about money, health, and whether or not Obama and his cast of clowns are driving us all over a cliff.   When my father died last spring, I looked at that dear, quiet and dead face and promised to be a better person--to serve with a humble heart--and to somehow try to be a light to others even when I was met with my own darkness.  I'm trying, but still manage to fall flat at least once a day.  I keep looking for something to orient me, to give it all some meaning and direction.

But overhead, the stars turn through the night sky and the Moon glides across the ecliptic; the Hunter chases the Bear and the galaxies whirl in the coldness of space.  The sense of anticipation, waiting, threat, hairs rising on the back of my neck: what is coming?  Will it by like Yeats, with a disintegration from order to chaos and a monster emerging out of the desert?  Or will it be something as small and inconsequential as a newborn with the message of peace?  Lord help me, I don't know.