Why I Follow This Star

Today I am pondering the magi following the Star of Bethlehem. It may seem a bit early for that. The “three kings” normally do not show up until Epiphany. In liturgically challenged churches, they may make an appearance in Christmas children’s pageants or Christmas Day readings. But in W.H. Auden’s dramatic Christmas poem “For the Time Being,” the magi are introduced right after the angel speaks to Joseph and soon after the Annunciation to Mary.  

The wise men tell the reader why they are following the star. The first says, “To discover how to be truthful now / Is the reason I follow this star.” The second wiseman says, “To discover how to be living now / Is the reason I follow this star.” The third says, “To discover how to be loving now is the reason I follow this star.” Then they sing together,  

At least we know for certain that we are three old sinners,  

That this journey is much too long, that we want our dinners, 

And miss our wives, our books, our dogs,  

But have only the vaguest idea why we are what we are.  

To discover how to be human now  

Is the reason we follow this star.”  

 

I love that these “three old sinners” confess that they miss their dinners, their wives, their books and their dogs while on their holy pilgrimage. Although I wonder why they list their dinners before their wives! Like the disciples of Jesus, these wise men of the East left everything to follow truth. There is a price to be paid for a spiritual journey.   

I find myself joining the magi in their song. I have been on spiritual retreats and missed my wife, my dinners, and my books ... in that order. (I never had a dog.) I also like that these “wise men” admit they “have only the vaguest idea why we are what we are.” I appreciate such healthy agnosticism. As Socrates said,  “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”  

My favorite part of this section in when the star speaks. Yes, the Star of the Nativity has a speaking role! It says: 

I am that star most dreaded by the wise,  

For they are drawn against their will to me,  

Yet read in my procession through the skies  

The doom of orthodox sophrosyne.  

I shall discard their major preservation, 

 All that they know so long as no one asks....  

 

Beware. All those who follow me are led  

Onto that Glassy Mountain where are no  

Footholds for logic, to that Bridge of Dread  

Where knowledge but increases vertigo.... 

  

The allegories in this part of the poem remind me of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, which I suspect was Auden’s inspiration.  This mystical part of the poem resonates with me. Regardless of what “lovers of wisdom” (the literal meaning of the word “philosophers”) are looking for, what they find is very different from what they were expecting. What they find is beyond orthodox sophrosyne (I had to look that word up!), logic, and knowledge. Even the decision to begin the journey was beyond their control.  

 

Where the star leads us is a mystery, and it remains a mystery. That is how we know it is Divine. I recently finished reading a mystery/detective novel entitled “Spirit Crossing” in which the main characters are Native Americans. In the book they repeatedly refer to God as the Great Mystery. I do not know if this is authentic Indigenous religious terminology, but I love the term. 

 

In following the Star we are looking for a Mystery beyond our imaginings. It is the “star most dreaded by the wise” because it explodes all human wisdom. Just as we cannot fathom the distances between the stars in the heavens, so we cannot fathom the Divinity of Heaven. If we knew how the search would change us, we might not begin the journey. Yet we follow the star just the same. We are drawn against our will. That is called grace. 

 

Then We Were Children

Every Advent I read W.H. Auden’s For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio. I have been doing this for many years. Last Christmas my eldest son gave me a new annotated edition of the book with an introduction and notes by Alan Jacobs. I have started my seasonal reading of the poem a bit early this year because Advent is so short, beginning three days after Thanksgiving and lasting only three and a half weeks. 

The sixty-five-page dramatic poem begins with an assessment of the earthly and spiritual condition at the time of Jesus’ birth, as well as the time the poem was birthed, which was during the Second World War. The opening sentence sets the tone: 

Darkness and snow descend; 

The clock on the mantelpiece 

Has nothing to recommend, 

Nor does the face in the glass 

Appear nobler than our own 

As darkness and snow descend 

On all personality. 

The dark snow represents a time when “The prophets lantern is out / And gone the boundary stone.” He contrasts it with ordinary times of alternating good and bad, which he calls “our familiar tribulations.”  

These after all are our familiar tribulations, 

So that, taking the bad with the good, the pattern composed 

by the ten thousand odd things that can possibly happen 

is permanent in a general average way.... 

That is why we were always able to say: ‘We are children of God. 

And our Father has never forsaken his people.’ 

 

But something different was happening in Mary of Nazareth’s day and in Auden’s day. I suspect it may be happening in our day as well. Things feel very different now. He writes: 

 

But then we were children: That was a moment ago, 

Before an outrageous novelty had been introduced  

Into our lives. Why were we never warned? perhaps we were.  

Perhaps that mysterious noise at the back of the brain  

We noticed on certain occasions - sitting alone  

In the waiting room of the country junction, looking  

Up at the toilet window - was not indigestion  

But this Horror starting already to scratch Its way in?  

Just how, just when It succeeded we shall never know:  

We can only say that now It is there and that nothing  

We learnt before It was there is now of the slightest use,  

For nothing like It has happened before. It is as if  

We had left our house for five minutes to mail a letter,  

And during that time the living room had changed places 

With the room behind the mirror over the fireplace....  

 

It feels as if we are on the verge of such a time in our country, and perhaps in the world. We are no longer children. As Auden’s older contemporary William Butler Yeats wrote shortly after the First World War in “The Second Coming”: 

 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst 

Are full of passionate intensity. 

 

I doubt we are approaching the Second Coming during this season when we celebrate the First Coming. At least I do not expect a Second Coming in the literal sense that fundamentalists expect, though perhaps in a metaphorical and spiritual sense. But in our time – like Auden’s - something different is happening. The center is not holding. Things are falling apart. Who knows what that means for the future? Therefore this Advent season is the time to prepare ourselves.