![]() ![]() The trip west offered space away from my preschooler, husband and housework to focus on a book proposal. On sabbatical from my work as an editor of Living Lutheran, I’d been accepted into Holden’s Partners in Ministry program for spiritual retreat. I’d come to Holden Village for several reasons. I wonder how they felt as they continued toward Bethlehem. I wonder if they noticed the twinge of fear in Herod’s tone. The man-king they met, Herod the Great, both helped them and commanded them to send word when they had reached the child. Now, a little turned around in a foreign land, they needed directions. They were so close to Christ: they’d followed a star from the East to visit the child-King. ![]() I wonder if the magi felt this way when they arrived in Jerusalem. More than ten years later, I stood there, unsure of what to do or where to go next. This was the place where Marty Haugen had composed his Holden Evening Prayer liturgy, which we sang weekly. Sometimes, during the sermon, I stared up at the chapel’s darkened, vaulted ceilings and wondered about Holden Village. This Lutheran community in the North Cascade mountains of Washington state was a place I’d dreamed of visiting since college, since chanting “Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world” by candlelight on Sunday evenings in the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University. It took two days of solo travel-two flights, a taxi, a bus ride, a night’s stay in a seedy hotel, another taxi, a boat ride and, finally, a slow ascent in a school bus along multiple switchbacks-to arrive at Holden Village. I’d come here to encounter God, but in this moment I felt only the chill of loneliness. Pale pink, lavender, tangerine and gold swirled above me. The sun had already dipped behind the surrounding mountains, which bathed the village in shadows. Gospel acclamation for Epiphany ( Year A), from Matthew 2:2 We have observed his star at its rising, and have come to worship him. ![]()
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