Gold at the Epiphany, despite a de-myrrhal

Magis from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

That’s the second chapter of Matthew from the New Testament, telling us of the visit of three Kings of the east to the infant Jesus, on what is marked today by the Feast of the Epiphany.

Well, we had a visitor on the feast of the Kings. Just one, Marie, and not from the East but the West. It’s true that two others, Moira and Barbara, joined my wife Danielle to welcome her, but they live locally. They hardly had to follow a star to find the place.

Moira and Danielle: two of the seven scintillating sisters
Song and dance in 1987

Today Marie lives in Los Angeles. The time when they’d been closest, indeed had worked together in an active women’s group, had been 30 or more years ago.  That had peaked spectacularly in a 1987 spectacle called ‘The Seven Scintillating Sisters’.

They sang a medley of songs, with dancing and little bits of theatre associated with them. The repertoire included several from that wonderful group, Fascinating Aïda, still going and as entertaining as ever today. This raised some religious questions, but only because the one-off, historic performance was originally planned to take place in a Catholic Church Hall. Sadly, once the authorities got around to reading some of the song lyrics, they changed their mind about the hall hire and the scintillating sisters had to find a different venue at short notice.

In the end, it all went well and everyone enjoyed themselves, in the audience and among the cast. Since then our paths had somewhat drifted apart though, with Barbara and Moira at least, they’d also come together again recently. Adding Marie led to much additional joy and merriment, as one would expect from the Feast of the Epiphany. Danielle, who’s French, made sure that the reunion had a fine English feel – as befits a tea in England – with cucumber sandwiches available alongside scones and tea.

Terribly English.
Cucumber sandwiches with French flair

Marie has discovered a new talent, for jewellery, and presented tokens of her work to the others.

“Gold!” I exclaimed.

“Gilded,” she corrected me.

But hey, I wasn’t going to get picky. Someone had shown up on the Feast of Kings and had brought what certainly looked like gold.

Danielle with her Epiphany Gold
Who cares if it's gilded?

I spent the rest of the evening waiting for other visitors bringing Frankincense and Myrrh. It didn’t happen. That was a slight disappointment, but only because I’ve never worked out what exactly myrrh is, and it would have been fun to find out.

Still, gold’s the really substantial one, isn’t it? And we had that. As well as tea with good friends, including Marie whom we hadn’t seen for seventeen years.

A good day. Myrrh or no myrrh. I’m certainly not complaining.

Moira, Marie, Barbara and Danielle
Four of the seven sisters. A joyful reunion. 30 years on.
Toffee was just adding to the fun