As we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany T.S. Eliot’s, The Journey of the Magi provides words for us to reflect on what this season can mean for us. This poem was written in 1927 soon after Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism. It is written from the perspective of one of the wise men. It is a wonderful poem but not really uplifting in an obvious kind of way. For the poet speaks of the challenge of the journey, a journey that takes place in winter, the worst time of year. He outlines the difficulties – the night fires going out, the unfriendly towns, their inner doubts telling them the journey was pure folly. The wise man says that he would take the journey again but there is a sense in the poem that birth and death are entwined. “Were we led all that way for Birth or death? There was…
