According to Jill Carratini, The word epiphany has the quality of vision and introspect, reality and awakening. She says, "As one who loves words, I like to think of all epiphanies as having been inspired by the first Epiphany, when the Word became flesh and defined for us the meaning of vision, reality, meaning, and wakefulness."
She quotes T.S. Elliot (from the perspective of one of the pagan magi)
Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly,
We had evidence, and no doubt I had seen birth and death.
But had thought they were different, this Birth was
hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our palaces, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
with an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Carratini:" Coming in contact with the Christ, proclaims Eliot, waking to the Child who was born to die is in a sense like dying ourselves. Though the poem seems to strike a somber note, it is a proclamation echoed triumphantly throughout the New Testament. The apostle Paul speaks readily of life in Christ using the words and imagery of death. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Uttering a similar connection between loss and epiphany, Jesus proclaims, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39). "
I think I often fight to keep myself from dying. Especially now when I am tired or worried (always some excuse) I find I am fighting very hard to give myself more time to rest or be by myself (perhaps not going out and helping someone when I know I have a chance to). Yet I find that when I decide to show love and treat someone kindly (rather than garner love or resources for myself) I am a lot more joyful. I wonder why it works like that.
