Some churches in the Catholic tradition are celebrating Epiphany today, including mine. It is a feast I love because of all it brings together around the improvised manger-bed of the infant Jesus: his holy Mother and St. Joseph, of course; a variety of animals generally thought at the time to be unfit for human company; shepherds, ditto, due to their habitual contact with such animals, down from the hills in obedience to an angelic summons; the Magi, sages, astrologers, proto-scientists from far and unknown lands with no connection to the religious or ethnic traditions into which Jesus was born, who somehow made their way to this obscure stable on the basis of their observation of the heavens; and the Star, drawing even the remotest regions of the Cosmos to this child’s humble transitional abode.

Epiphany is about the “manifestation” of the infant Jesus, but that manifestation would not have been possible without much journeying by nearly all concerned: the journey of Mary and Joseph from their home in Nazareth for the census; the journey of the shepherds from their flocks to the stable; and the journey of the Magi from their far-away lands.

The journey of many people has been terribly hard in recent months, whether as the result of greed, bad policy, natural disaster, or more private sources of distress.

My own journey, and that of my husband, has been challenging but in a way that we have chosen, as my new role as a Deputy Public Defender has summoned us to divide our time between the Antelope Valley (which has been our home for many years) and the San Joachin, heretofore largely unknown to us but (as we have discovered) both beautiful and friendly. We’ve been experiencing hope and joy and a sense of purpose, but also quite a lot of uprootedness. (As a result of these changes, this website had grown badly out of date, for which I apologize.)

My “secular” work now places me in almost daily contact with persons who are at the receiving end of deep misfortune. It also, to one extent or another, places me in the privileged and humbling position of being able, in certain material if limited ways, to help. But the very ability to provide that help reminds me of how much more is needed that it is beyond my power to offer.

I pray, for all of us, that our respective journeys through this world, in both the easy stretches and the rough ones, might find us always nearer to the manger in which the source of our being, and the destiny of our hope, is lying, and always closer to one-another, and more ready to call out to our fellow-pilgrims for the help we need on the way.