It’s always good, but never better than during these holy days, to recognize the difference between genuine gold and the sort that blinds fools (and all of us when we’re foolish).
You probably remember that alchemy of old was the attempt to turn common metal into precious gold. Most blacksmiths, I suppose, were content enough to ply their useful trade and hone their craft, and their communities daily reaped the benefit of their art in iron. Alchemists ultimately benefit no one, and we’re all alchemists when we find ourselves endlessly chasing pots of gold labelled “When We Make It Big,” “When We Arrive,” “When We’re Really Successful,” “When We Have All We Want,” when . . .
Notice that the pot of gold is always like the carrot on the stick in front of the proverbial donkey’s nose. Notice that the “when” of dangled success and proffered happiness is always in the future and never in the now. Notice that, self-blinded, even if we knew where we were going in our race to have always more, and blindly bowing to our creed that more is always better (we’re not sure why, but it must be, right?), we’d never know when we’d arrived even if we got “there.”
Odd it is, how a contented blacksmith finds gold that no one can take away and a gold-seeking alchemist, even one in a business suit or a fancy car living the “good life” spending all of his never-enough gold on himself and whose life’s highest goal is that he not lose too many golf balls, ends up with a life that rusts and blows away.
The closest the Virgin Mary ever got to gold was to hold in trust the amazing gift one of those truly wise men gave as an offering to her infant Son. What a sweet miracle it was that those fellows were given eyes to recognize the star they should follow, the fruition of the journey its light directed, and the baby King worthy of all worship in its glow. “When we arrive” never arrives for gold-worshipers, but “when” becomes “now” and rich indeed for gold-givers. They make the right journey. They worship the right King.
But long before that wise man brought gold, Mary’s heart was genuinely golden. The angel Gabriel’s message took her breath away, but pure was the heart that his appearance and his words almost stopped.
Glittering with God-glow, Mary goes to see her also-astounded and glowing kinswoman, and Elizabeth’s soon-to-be-born son, also God-promised and long-prophesied, leaps inside his mother as if he can’t wait to begin his proclamation. Ah, John, it won’t be long, but first Mary’s full-term time will come and more angels will visit to do their own God-commissioned proclaiming, to light up the sky with golden glory, and to sing praises with tongues of light.
Fools chase gold, frantically hoping to find it “when.” Mary and her children have already found it in their hearts when they respond to God and his promises right now, “Yes, Lord, I believe. May it be to me as you have said.”
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Copyright 2017 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
