A Life-Line for the week after the Feast of Epiphany

(An Excerpt)

Having had the privilege, as a spiritual director, of catching and holding the stories of so many extraordinarily ordinary and ordinarily extraordinary people, I know that humans have these [epiphanic, theophanic, and hierophantic] experiences. I have had them myself as have you. I call it being on the porch of mystery and I know I had little, if anything, to do with getting there. I have learned not to analyze these moments, not to try greedily to squeeze the meaning out of them, but simply to stop and let them take me in. I don’t presume to know what they mean. I only know that they happen from time to time and that in these ineffable moments, fleeting or extended, I am the least self-conscious and yet the most fully myself.

Sometimes, these epiphanic experiences connect us to the beautiful, the enchanting, the exquisite and make us weep from the wonder of it all. Other times they might put us in touch with the tragic, the devastating, the sorrowful mysteries of life and living and make us weep from the pathos of it all. In each case, there is a sense of being part of some deep truth that, should one try to communicate it later, could only be alluded to with images or similes.

With me, the visitations of truth that carry hints of the Holy have always come with no warning, through no initiation on my part. I know that these epiphanies are “special” but not unusual, that they happen to all kinds of people and not to any one type of person. When graced with an epiphany, I know that there is nothing better to do than to receive them with awe as sheer gift.

My suspicion is that they are happening all around us all the time if we but had the wise eyes to see.

~ Dan Miller
This is an excerpt taken from a reflection I wrote January 7, 2019 about The Epiphany and epiphanies.