Looking For a Star to Follow?
An Epiphany Reflection by Jessie Badach Hubert,
VMA alum and friend of the SSJs
My beloved spiritual director once gifted me a watercolor painting of a quote by Rilke: “You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born….The future must enter you long before it happens.” I loved it, even though I didn’t understand it.
Years later, I read spiritual author/artist Scott Erickson’s reflection on the magi from his book, Honest Advent: “They were paying attention. To what was around them, yes–the world, the sky, the stars. But they were also paying attention to how those exterior patterns were pointing to the interior patterns inside their hearts and souls,” (174). As Rilke might say, “The future must enter you long before it happens.”
This Advent, I made a daylong retreat at the SSJ Community Living Center. At dusk, I mindlessly grabbed a pen and began doodling with no conscious plan. Eventually, I had drawn a tree. It had a dual, skinny trunk, like a birch. Then I drew another, tall with thick bark and branches, followed by a third, with gnarly branches. The trees were connected at their roots by a heart. God revealed that I had drawn my three children, each of their precious personalities reflected in one of the trees. It reflected my deep, holy longing: to feel lovingly connected to my kids and held together in God’s love.
The next day, I walked in the chilly winter air around the grounds. I stopped short in delight when I saw a birch tree that looked just like what I had drawn! For fun, I looked around, and sure enough I saw two other trees, lined up like my drawing, right in front of me. I laughed, in wonder of it all.
Says Erickson, “Is it too fantastical to think that the Giver of your spirit, who is also the Giver of the material world, will use both of those given realities to lead you to a deeper knowing?” (175-176). The mystical twisting of my interior and exterior worlds gave me pause, and it drew me in to follow not the trees, but rather, the God who has been loving my family, even before we were born.
If you’re looking for what star to follow to find Christ in your own life, you may want first to start by giving birth to the images and longings you carry in the depths of your heart. Have you spoken them to God? If God sent you a sign to follow, would you be familiar enough with the landscape of your interior self that you would notice it?
