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Dear Beloved Passing the Peace Readers, 

This week I want to share with you an Epiphany blessing written by Jan Richardson. It is a beautiful poem reflecting on how we, like the magi, are pilgrims on a journey of faith. I have set the poem to images of my own wandering and travels over the past year which may be viewed here: 

 

For Those Who Have Far to Travel 

Jan Richardson 

 

If you could see the journey whole 

you might never undertake it; 

might never dare the first step 

that propels you 

from the place you have known 

toward the place you know not. 

 

Call it one of the mercies of the road: 

that we see it only by stages 

as it opens before us, 

as it comes into our keeping 

step by single step. 

 

There is nothing for it but to go 

and by our going take the vows 

the pilgrim takes: 

to be faithful to the next step; 

to rely on more than the map; 

to heed the signposts of intuition and dream; 

to follow the star that only you will recognize; 

to keep an open eye for the wonders that attend the path; 

to press on beyond distractions 

beyond fatigue 

beyond what would tempt you from the way. 

 

There are vows that only you will know; 

the secret promises for your particular path 

and the new ones you will need to make 

when the road is revealed by turns 

you could not have foreseen. 

 

Keep them, break them, make them again: 

each promise becomes part of the path; 

each choice creates the road 

that will take you to the place 

where at last you will kneel to offer the gift 

most needed— the gift that only you can give— 

before turning to go home by another way. 

 

May the Peace of Christ be with you in all your travels,

 

Yours in Christ, 

Rev Michiko