Epiphany

January 6

O deity: you transfixing transgressor,
translating back and forth on the border
without a passport. 

From “Epiphany” by Joanie Mackowski

Epiphany is a holiday or feast or observance by the Christian church to mark the day that Jesus Christ’s incarnation (that is, God in human flesh) was revealed to the gentiles, mere mortals. Western Christians say we’re remembering the day the Magi brought gifts to baby Jesus. Which is why the last church I was regularly a part of celebrated January 6 with a white elephant party. There was also a King Cake—a cake with a little plastic baby hidden inside. If I recall, whoever got the baby in their slice was responsible for baking the cake the next year.

It so happens that on this year’s Epiphany Sunday (January 3), I was a guest on a podcast talking about losing church, losing my religion, losing my sense of God as a force with which I had a close personal relationship. I didn’t know it would drop on Epiphany Sunday, but I sort of like that it turned out that way.

We got into the topic of art and faith in the episode, and I shared that what still remains from my faith is the sense that God—whatever or whoever that may be—is primarily a creator, a creative force. And that humans are uniquely imbued with this force, too, and it’s in acts of creation that I still find the storm of my faith swirling around inside and around me in life-giving ways.

And I still love the idea of incarnation. That the divine love and the creative force I associate with Christ—the one who, in the very poetic John 1, is the Word through whom all of life is made—pushes through somehow into our finite, mortal, bodied world. It takes on arms and legs and voices and faces and words and music and wows us in big ways, and also in quiet revelations, little sparks, in what makes us ooh and ahh or laugh or tear up.

A few days ago, my husband and I sat down to watch TikTok Ratatouille, and somewhere around the first “Anyone Can Cook” number, I just started crying. It’s a silly thing, I guess, a TikTok musical. But the fact that people in a bunch of different locations, armed only with their smartphones and a joyful spirit (and talent!), went to the trouble to put this thing together and did it with such gusto…it moved me so much.

Then, I read on Twitter that Adolfo Quiñones, aka Shabba Doo, died suddenly. He was a star and choreographer of a movie about breakdancing that came out when I was 14. He was also a regular on Soul Train before that, which I was a regular of (from my living room) through many Saturdays of yore.

I went and found an interview with him that was recorded only a few days before his death. And at about 18 minutes in through to the end, he starts dropping some intense and personal truths that honestly are kind of everything every creator needs to know or be reminded of. Why do you do what you do, who do you do it for, how will you spend yourself, how will you be you?

A TikTok musical, a breakdancer’s eloquent thoughts about his work, recent fantastic movies like The Sound of Metal and The Forty-Year-Old Version, the banter I share with my friend Bryan on his podcast…these are all little ways the divine pushes through to me, that I feel something in the universe wants to love us, something big wants to come down or come through or get into our dimension and be something small, to make itself available.

I hope you get a piece of that divine action, that epiphany force this year.

Updates

• I’m doing new stuff with my podcast, This Creative Life. I retained the audio rights to Courageous Creativity, and I’m going to make some special content with that for paid subscriber posts. That launches this month! It will be basically an episodic version of the audiobook, with my commentary about the thinking and experiences that went into each section. Annual subscriptions are 25% off until January 31, or you can use —>this link<— to get a special newsletter-reader rate on the monthly subscription (25% off). Feel free to share that link with friends.

• The latest episode of the regular feed was pretty great if you’re at all in the writing/publishing world.

• Since I last wrote, I turned in the close to final draft of my first middle-grade novel, and will soon be able to share more about that!

Until next time,

Sara