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I haven’t posted anything since December 5, “last year.” One reason? This past December 27 I got in my car and drove 1,800 miles out west, “in the bleak midwinter.” (As illustrated at right. A truck stop in Grand Island Nebraska, snowed in on December 29.)

I drove out to visit my brother in Utah, and his wife. (My “hiking buddies” on the Portuguese Camino. See Just got back – Portuguese Camino!) Their son and daughter also came out – from Back East – along with my new (as of June 2018) “nephew by marriage.” (See On a wedding in Hadley – and John, Peter and Paul.)

It was a great trip and I’ll be writing more about it in later posts. But in the meantime, I need to get back to some of the themes of this post: Like reading and studying the Bible to get closer to God. And – on that note – paying more attention to Feast days.

The most recent feast day was Epiphany, celebrated back on Monday, January 6. Some previous posts on the subject include Epiphany, circumcision, and “3 wise guys,” To Epiphany – “and BEYOND!” Then came last year’s Happy Epiphany – 2018.

To start off, the “3 wise guys” post explained how the Adoration of the Magi – illustrated by the painting at the top of the page – fits in with all this “Epiphany” stuff. We know the full story better from the hymn, We Three Kings (of Orient Are). Which hymn in turn celebrates…

… the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, lay before him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and worship him. It is related in the Bible by Matthew 2:11…

And as noted, the event is remembered as the Feast of Epiphany (January 6).

The “3 wise guys” post gave some further details, like theories on the actual names of the three wise men (three kings), and a fuller, more earthy explanation of circumcision:

On January 1st, we celebrate the Circumcision of Christ… Every Jewish boy was circumcised (and formally named) on the eighth day of his life, and so, one week after Christmas, we celebrate the occasion when Our Lord first shed His blood for us. (E.A.)

The post also noted that because we are “more squeamish than our ancestors,” modern church calendars usually list January 1 – “eight days*” after December 25 – as the “Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.” And finally, it noted the practice of circumcision can be traced back as far as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which described “the sun god Ra as having circumcised himself.” (Thus making him “One Tough Monkey!”)

But enough about circumcision. (Including the circumcision knife above left, “from the Congo; wood, iron; late 19th/early 20th century.”) The point is that January 6 – the Feast of Epiphany – “celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ.” But that day goes by other names as well. It’s also known as the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas.  (And just to confuse things, the evening of January 5 is known as Twelfth Night.) Yet a third name for January 6 is Three Kings Day.

As discussed above…

But the end of an old year and beginning of a New Year is also a time to recall the events of that past year gone by, and 2019 was definitely a year of pilgrimage for me. Like my trip last May to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. (See “On to Jerusalem, On my first full day in Jerusalem, or type in “Jerusalem” in the search box above right.)

Or my September trip to hike 160 miles the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago, from Porto to Santiago. (Type “Portugal” in the search box.) But my most recent pilgrimage was a 15-day drive out to and back from my brother’s house in Utah.

Which included getting snowed in at a Motel 6 in Grand Island, Nebraska, with a view of the near-frozen North Platte River from my motel-room window, as shown below. But it also included a great burger and two draft beers at the Thunder Road Grill at the truck stop next door. (As shown in the notes.) So the way I figure, “there’s some kind of lesson there!“

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The upper image is courtesy of Epiphany (holiday) – Wikipedia.  The full caption: “Adoration of the Magi by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 17th century.”

Re: “‘Eight days’ after December 25.” Today we would begin the eight-day count the day after December 25, which would make January 1 the seventh day after 12/25. But in Jesus’ time the Hebrews would have included December 25 in the eight-day count.

The Motel 6 in question was at 7301 Bosselman Ave, Grand Island, NE. The full link to the “Thunder Road” website is Thunder Road Grill | Pizza, Wings & Burgers | Grand Island, NE.

As for the “lesson there,” see Ecclesiastes 8:15, “I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.” Or Psalm 104:15, on wine (or beer) “to gladden the heart.” In other words, if you’re stuck next door to a snowed-in Nebraska truck stop, you might as well enjoy a burger and beer(s), especially if you can do laundry at the same time.

I took the “Grand Island” photos, including the one above right, of my glasses on the bar next to a half-empty glass of draft beer. The circumcision-knife image is courtesy of Circumcision – Wikipedia.