Rain is on the way. Forecasts show a 70% chance tomorrow and 100% certainty the next day. Our farmers can use the moisture. From the drive yesterday, the winter wheat is a bit spotty in places and needs a drink. Dark and waiting, the other fields are plowed and the soil ready. Now is the best time for a soaking, slow-falling rain.

My problem is the Epiphany. That is my deadline to take down the outside Christmas lights. Failure to timely remove those lights will likely result in dunning notices from the Homeowner’s Association and long frowns from the neighboring families for truant twinkle trimatories, faulted frivolous festivatories and cordoned continued celebratories.

The timing is the thing and, I think, that takes us back 2,013 years to 2 AD.

Round and about January 6, 2 AD, Three Wise Men (the three are also called the Three Kings or the Three Magi) are reported to have arrived in Bethlehem for a visit. The day was twelve (12) days after the Nativity or birth of Jesus on December 25, 1 AD. That day, twelve days after Christmas, is referred to as the “Epiphany.”

For Joseph and Mary, the arrival of the Three Kings was a surprising and appreciated event. The couple needed cash to finance a hasty trip to Egypt to hide the newborn child from the jealous-of-another-king King Herod of Judea. Gold, frankincense and myrhh, the costly gifts of the Magi, were readily convertible to cash for the journey. So, royalty with gifts on the doorstep was startling, unexpected and very welcome. It was a cause for thought, its own Epiphany for Mom and Dad.

For the Wise Men, seeing the baby there in that manger in that way flashed into their crowned and turbaned heads the sudden and striking realization that kingships and kingdoms could transcend traditional boundaries and offer benefits even to folks who were not of Jewish lineage. This was a breakthrough in cranial squeezing and ocular squinting. Thinking hard and scribbling parchment notes atop their camels on the journey back (luckily the eye-rolling dromedaries knew the way home for their absent-minded drivers), the light bulbs went off in their over-sized heads. At dinner around the campfire, the Kings decided that day was an Epiphany, because that is what happened to them – an experience of sudden and striking realization. It is hard to argue with truly Wise Men and the name “Epiphany” stuck for the day and the occurrence.

Over time, Twelfth Night (before the day of Epiphany) became a night of parties with bright lights, good food and fun times. Twelfth Day (the day of Epiphany itself) was a happy remembering and a waving away to those friends and dignitaries who had to speed down the road after their visit and the end of the Christmas Holiday. “Don’t forget to turn the lights off!” folks would laugh and shout at each other. “See you next year. Maybe they’ll invent electricity by then and we’ll have real Christmas lights.”

As you can see and hear and to make a long story somewhat shorter, yesterday was the last official day for the many-colored Holiday lights strung around the windows overlooking the back walking trail and the two little bushes by the garage draped in their Christmas color.

My heart is sad, for I love the bright strings of color, but I dare not raise the ire of my neighbors by partying too long and turning those lights back on. With the rain arriving, I cannot take the bulbs down just yet, but I will – right now, in the midst of this writing – go and unplug those outside strings. I will then patiently await the raindrops and their end so that I might retrieve the ladder and begin the work of formal removal.

Until then, as I wait warm inside from the drizzle and damp of the dripping moisture that impedes my necessary labors . . . until then – don’t tell anyone, please — I will quietly pull the blinds, sneakily lower the shades, stealthily plug in the plug to the Christmas tree, bask in a few bright stolen post-Epiphanaic colored rays for a few more days, and think of Three Kings making their way home under a bright guiding new star.

It’s a long way by camel but a short way by thought.

Enjoy an epiphany,

Grandpa Jim