From Judy Horton:<\/p>\n
Last night we celebrated Epiphany, the feast commemorating the arrival of the Three Kings at the manger in Bethlehem.\u00a0 It\u2019s not much noted in society at large but our Ranchers can tell you exactly what it\u2019s about.<\/p>\n
It marks the end of Christmas and the return to normal life, or as the church calls it, \u201cOrdinary Time.\u201d\u00a0 In Latin America friends get together, bake a rosca,<\/em> or Three Kings cake, and bury a tiny Christ child in it.\u00a0 Whoever bites into the baby Jesus is the host for a party February 2.<\/p>\n We, however, determined that the lucky soul finding the Christ child will host the Super Bowl party. It may not be exactly kosher by anyone\u2019s standards, but it\u2019s a big motivator for the Ranchers and they start asking me about the Epiphany party right after Christmas.<\/p>\n As Craig and I stirred the hot chocolate and cut the cake in the Pavilion kitchen last night Michael and Brian arrived first.\u00a0 Michael has had uncanny luck in the past at this festival and is sure he will find the baby Jesus this year.\u00a0 I remind him there are a lot more of us these days and his chances are less.\u00a0 But he is certain.<\/p>\n The others arrive.\u00a0 We gather in the front rooms, draw names for the three costumed Kings\/Queens\/Wise People to lead our procession, dress them up in our meagre stock of costumes (mostly consisting of old draperies) and give them their gifts to carry.<\/p>\n Everybody else carries a real, lit candle.\u00a0 We darken the Pavilion and begin our march toward the dining room singing We Three Kings.\u00a0 We get there and Terry reads the passage from Matthew that tells the story.\u00a0 I explain the importance to Ranchers and staff assembled, that the feast is important because it\u2019s when the Word is published and made available to the whole world.<\/p>\n We close with Silent Night and shift to the raucous part of the evening.\u00a0 It takes a while for the Christ child to be found and the world quickly spreads: it\u2019s Jim!<\/em><\/p>\n Jim, quiet and reticent, was smiling from ear to ear. This is as emotive as Jim gets.\u00a0 I could tell he was enormously, hugely tickled.<\/p>\n For Jim.<\/p>\n I told him he\u2019d have a budget and we would work with him to put on the party, but he is the host!<\/p>\n As I drove back to Austin in the freezing night, I pondered how my life turned out that in my 70s, I would be surrounded by these dozens of good people for the Feast of Epiphany.\u00a0 For the first half of my life I was barely aware of anything beyond Easter or Christmas and I was not aware at all of people with intellectual disabilities.<\/p>\n But then came Kelly, and new life, and with it, new faith, when one Sunday morning my (supposedly) atheist husband wandered into the bedroom with a cup of coffee and said, \u201cHey, let\u2019s go to that little Episcopal church on airport.\u201d<\/p>\n We did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From Judy Horton: Last night we celebrated Epiphany, the feast commemorating the arrival of the Three Kings at the manger in Bethlehem.\u00a0 It\u2019s not much noted in society at large but our Ranchers can tell you exactly what it\u2019s about. It marks the end of Christmas and the return to normal life, or as the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhr.tiltedchair.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}