 |
|
    |
 |
||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We always enjoyed the days from December twenty-sixth to January sixth. We lit our Christmas tree every night, making the spirit or Christmas carry over into the new year. We went for walks in the big field behind the house where the grass was frozen and turned down under our feet. The branches in the trees rattled in the wind, as though the veins where the sap would run were hollow and their emptiness cried out. The sparrows congregated in the syringa bush, finding in its dense branches a perfect shelter against the cold. The dirt road to the Farm turned rock hard, and the salt from the town plows turned it white. During an ice storm the trees became ice palaces. All the grass, rocks, stone walls and steps were under glass. Then, as the temperature warmed, we heard the ice fall round the base of each tree, looking like a collection of the broken stems from wineglasses at Nature's party. When the twelfth day of Christmas came, the lovely long season that began with Advent and the St. Eliot/St. Nicholas tea came to an end with a party. In the countries with a Spanish heritage January sixth, called the Feast of the Three Kings, is a great day of rejoicing. In other countries it is called Epiphany, "the appearance of God," when the Magi saw the Christ child. In my childhood, the bakery windows in Geneva displayed cakes with three tiny stone "kings" hidden inside. I remember the excitement of searching with my teeth, bite after bite, for the hoped-for resistance that showed that I had one of the "good luck" kings in my mouth. Those prized trophies stayed in my jewelry box for years. Two illuminations in Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry—where my rigid, self-chosen faith had met my Farm world—illustrate different views of the three kings. The first shows a crossroads where the three kings meet. They are shown triumphant, "man as captain of his destiny," with magnificent crowns and prancing steeds. Banners fly, leopards come as pets, and even a dog journeyed from afar to pay homage to the child born in a stable. But in the next view of the magi they are on bended knee or prostrate before the King of Kings, their crowns in the hands of their attendants, as though their own position in human eyes was nothing by comparison to their real worth in the eyes of the Christ child. On January sixth the Advent group gathered in the late afternoon, and, this time, our celebration was in the entrance hall of our house. People either stood or sat for the very short service. We began by singing the hymn, "We Three Kings," men and women taking turns, and then all of us together singing the last verse. Seton read the Gospel story from Matthew 2:1-12, telling of the magi coming to Bethlehem. Then Michael Ware recited from memory T. S. Eliot's The Journey of the Magi, another expression of the struggle of faith as life moves from the ordinary to the extraordinary. The poem begins:
A while later Jack stood at the front door, with its dark woodwork, and wrote in white chalk across the lintel: 19 C + M + B 80. As he wrote each letter he spoke the traditional names of the kings: Casper (sometimes referred to as Gaspard), Melchior, and Balthasar. Jack then repeated the initials with the new meaning the church had given them: Christus Mansionem Benedicat: Christ Bless this House. He then read the blessing:
We sang again "We Three Kings," followed by the Lord's Prayer, and passed the Peace for the last time during this season. In the old days the feast of the Epiphany was yet another cause for revelry, and we saw no reason to change the traditional theme: "When fools are kings and kings are fools." It was a time of jesters and riddles and prizes to be won. So after a buffet dinner we gathered for the serving of the King's Cake that Kathleen McDermott had baked. She cut this cake, every year running, in a magical way, so that only the children found a "king" in their portions. Then Michael Ware, the consummate actor and clown, donned a special red, white, and green jester's hat—with many points, each decorated with a tiny bell—and picked up a scepter with even more bells, to rule his court. Before we could win a small prize, Michael put each of us to the test. Some sang, others recited or read a poem, some had to do a balancing act or to push a bean across the floor with their noses, and others had to stand still and say nothing for two minutes while the jester made hilarious faces and took wonderful poses. The light-hearted joy of the evening bid farewell to the Christmas season. Everyone went home with a copy of the written blessing and a piece of chalk tied in a red ribbon so that they too could bless their front doors and their houses. As in Les Tres Riches Heures, the farm year and the church year were being played out in our lives. However, with the end of the Christmas season we were now braced for a somber time. Grace Lee Billings lived at the Farm from 1973 to 1998. Her account of Advent and Christmas comes from an unpublished memoir, "The Season of the Green Meadows." She now lives in Boston. |
||||||
 |
||||||
|
Academics | Admissions | Alumni | Works | Listen | Look | Contact | Index | Home | Yale University
|