Magi Archives - Atonement Church

A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of year for a journey.

TS Eliot’s journey to faith began with doubt. Just as many hardships challenged the Magi, many difficulties assailed Eliot as he attempted to leave his past life behind and seek spiritual truth. Eliot’s earlier works, such as “The Hollow Men”, refer to the afterlife as “death’s other kingdom” and imply that we are all living meaningless lives. But after converting to Christianity, Eliot’s works took on a more hopeful tone. “The Four Quartets” has been cited as being “overtly religious” while “Journey of the Magi” centers on the Birth of Christ and the meaning it gives to humanity.

Eliot always contended that he had no “conversion experience” but quietly became a believer.

REFLECT: While he considered his salvation a very private matter and kept this conversion secret, it had such an impact on him that he wrote a poem as an allegory. How do you honor and recall your own salvation?

Journeys are never easy. Each year as I set up my creche, I wonder about the mysterious Wise Men who journeyed from the East. We have only a few scant verses from the Book of Matthew about them:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

Tradition has it that they were three astronomers who had been tracking the moving Star and believed in the prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah.

Surely, I would think to myself, these three men—not Hebrews—were changed by their journey. It was the idea that eventually led me to write a previous Christmas story, A Star for Zachary, which told the tale of an elderly man who was a shepherd on a hill the night the Heavenly Angels announced the Holy Birth. His life had been changed forever.

T.S. Eliot’s poem, “Journey of the Magi”, holds the same fascination for me. Eliot penned the poem in 1927, the same year he became a British citizen. While the poem itself tells an allegory of the Three Wisemen’s journey to the Christ Child, making frequent reference to prophecy and Bible verses, it was also written by Eliot as an analysis of his own conversion journey to faith.

For me, the last four years have been an immensely difficult journey, full of obstacles and doubt as I was plunged into widowhood and the single parenting of an autistic adult. Yet along with the difficulties were also amazing discoveries of my abilities as a writer, the building of a readership, and the decision to make the 2023-2024 school year my last as a full-time teacher.

Please join me on this Christmas Journey as we follow the Wise Men along the route to Bethlehem and reflect for a few moments on the Great Gift that leads us to Christmas morning.

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A Cold Beginning

Journey of the Magi

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