Feast of the Epiphany
and some thoughts on Kanye West
Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrating the manifestation of the light of Christ in the world, the dawning of salvation. I didn’t realize that there’s a custom of replacing the statues of the shepherds with the Three Wise men in Nativity scenes on this feast. The idea being that Christ was known first to the shepherds, and then on this day, he was revealed to the Magi, who’d traveled from a foreign land bearing gifts.
20 + C + M + B + 21
There’s another Christian custom today of chalking the doors with 20+C+B+21. The 20 and 21 represent the year. The letters represent the initials of the Magi — Caspar, Malchior, and Balthazar. They also abbreviate the Latin phrase, Christus mansionem benedicat: “May Christ bless the house.” The + signs represent the cross. Here and here are two articles on the practice.
2020 was filled with so many strangenesses that lots of things that might have been a bigger deal in any other year were sort of treated as trivial events. “Oh murder hornets? Hmm, whatevs.” Kanye West was one of those things.
He ran for president and was on the ballot in 12 states. He missed the deadlines for several since he didn’t declare his candidacy until July 4, 2020. He got 60,000 votes. People can speculate all they want about why he ran and what, if any, impact he and his candidacy had on the election. I’m not really interested in that. What I am interested in is people and Kanye West is interesting. He’s a rapper and husband to Kim Kardashian, as I am sure most people are aware of. It is almost impossible to avoid the Kardashians. A lot of time and “news” space is wasted on nonsense about the Kardashians. For the most part, I don’t pay attention to it. I don't care what they are selling, buying, doing, wearing, thinking…you get the idea. And, to be honest, I never really gave much thought to Kanye. I don’t listen to rap music and, like I said, I don’t care about the Kardashians.
According to West’s wikipedia page: he’s sold more than 20 million albums and 140 million singles worldwide. He has won a total of 21 Grammy Awards, his other awards include the Billboard Artist Achievement Award, a joint-record three Brit Awards for Best International Male Solo Artist and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Six of his albums have been included on Rolling Stone's 2020 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list; the same publication named him one of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. West is the tied holder for the most albums (four) topping the annual Pazz & Jop critic poll. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2015.
Whatever you think of the guy, that list is impressive.
His presidential platform advocated for a consistent life ethic, based on his Christian faith, and included ending abortion and capital punishment. He endorsed environmental stewardship, school prayer, and strong national defense.
He says that his musical influences include L.L. Cool J and Phil Collins.
His philanthropy work includes, World Water Day rally and march, a Live Earth concert, and an MTV special to assist young Iraq War veterans who struggle with debt and PTSD.
He’s called out the recoding industry about practices that enrich non-creative executives while leaving singers, songwriters, and musicians with often little to show for their creative work. He called it a form of “modern day slavery.”
West, Kardashian, and their four children have all been baptized in the Armenian Church.
He’s written songs and talked about his struggles with mental illness and suicidal ideation.
In 2019, West said, “When I was trying to serve multiple gods it drove me crazy" in reference to the "god of ego, god of money, god of pride, the god of fame."
In September of 2020, he tweeted dozens of pictures of Orthodox Christian icons.
On Christmas Day, West dropped a 12 minute, 5 song Christmas album called, Emmanuel. The songs are inspired by ancient and Latin hymns. O Magnum Mysterium is one of the songs. It’s beautiful. The album was written and produced by West and features the Sunday Service Choir.
There’s always controversy around him, fights, insults, people angry with him, but he seems to be driven by something other than simply being blandly palatable to the most number of people. Maybe West is a modern day Holy Fool, one who outwardly seems bizarre, but is doing all for Christ.
The novel, Laurus, by Eugen Vodolaskin, is an excellent novel about a holy fool.
This novel takes place during a time of plague and pestilence…sound familiar?