epiphany: noun, a divine manifestation; a sudden realization or revelation of the deeper essence or meaning of something.

(The Day of) Epiphany in the liturgical sense refers to the Wise Men visiting baby Jesus, denoted as January 6 on the calendar (the twelfth day of Christmas). Most western countries and Christians don’t celebrate, recognize, or even realize there is such a holy day. When we use the word, we usually mean it in an ah-ha moment of illumination or whole-picture deeper meaning. Ohhhh, now we get it.

Last year I declared Epiphany as the day I take down the Christmas decorations. In part because I don’t fully begin to slow down enough to absorb the tree and other items until after the frenzy of December 25 is past. It’s in the aftermath of the holidays that I truly appreciate the twinkling lights on the tree and elsewhere. And yeah, it’s in part due to delay; I don’t like taking apart what took so long to get in place. It’s anti-climactic, a bit too much labor, and a wee bit sad too. Goodbye, and back to the attic you go until after Thanksgiving. (And tree lights, could you guys manage not to stop working sometime between now and then? I never understand how working lights going up to the attic, carefully, come down, carefully, from the attic not working.) Declaring a certain day to dismantle everything and pairing it with a day of heightened meaning makes the work less work-like and more ceremonial.

But I want, no, I expect this year’s Day of Epiphany to be one that I acknowledge and feel in my faith and experience in the philosophical sense, too. I am searching for the divine in the ordinary. Not in a looking-for-Jesus-in-the-cereal-bowl sort of way (and not posting a photo on Facebook if I happen to see a likeness there). Not in a “Let’s elevate the everyday to the sacred” way either.

I want an electrifying epiphany that knocks the blinders off my eyes and opens up new realities that seem incomprehensible, unfathomable, impossible today. OK, yeah, that’s asking a lot, right? But what if that’s why we don’t manifest epiphanies of miracle proportion as often as we should (or ever)? We don’t ask for or expect better. We don’t believe. We’re skeptics and scoffers and scorners. We’ve stopped asking big-picture questions ’cause we never feel like we get that last, crucial puzzle piece that would make the big picture make sense. We try to quieten our intuition because we don’t trust we have what we need to listen and heed its advice. (Our intuition still whispers to us, and we choose to ignore it at our own peril.)

What if you went to bed tonight, expecting to have an epiphany when you wake up? What might you dream or God nudge in your heart that could open your eyes to new visions the next morning? And what if you realized that sometimes you have to make the journey for the epiphany to take place? After all, the Wise Men knew Jesus wouldn’t come to them; they made the trip to discover him. And they made the trip believing they would find the divine manifestation—why else would they have toted those heavy gifts all that way?

Here’s my challenge to you and me: Start believing in miracle-size epiphanies; sometimes they’ll just appear, literally or philosophically. And start seeking them—look for the star and dare to set out after it. In doing so, we may make and meet the most glorious discoveries this side of eternity.

sacred: adjective, something deemed worthy of respect and honor (and observance); dedicated to or set apart as holy for religious purposes (relating to rituals, rites, practices, or objects for use in worshiping an entity).

Sacred exudes having and displaying a sense of respect with awe and reverence in the mix. It’s all about the person doing the respecting, not the object or ritual upon which this emotion is projected or reflected. A candle, a building, the act of Holy Communion? They truly mean nothing on their own. Zip. Nada. (To those that say communion is always holy, I’d argue that without knowledge and belief, it’s merely a wafer and grape juice/wine.) A relationship, a home, building a business with heart? Ditto.

We claim something as sacred and assign to it that elevated meaning. We first have to believe in its sacredness. When we believe something is sacred, we bestow upon it heightened significance, symbolism, and power.

Synonyms to this word include “holy” but the opposite of sacred isn’t “unholy.” A better antonym is “casual.” If we treat a thing or an event or a person with casualness, then getting a replacement or doing away with it entirely is easy.

My grandmother's ring is sacred to me because of what it represents.

I have a ring from my grandmother that holds for me an element of sacredness, and I treat it as such. In what has become a ritual, I look at her initials engraved on the underside before wearing it. I think of her life—the good, the bad, the mellowing in her later years. I wear it carefully, respectfully, lovingly. If you saw it you’d see a cool vintage ring, period. Nothing sacred, for sure. You’d likely never notice the tiny hand-etched initials, or if you did, not be able to decipher them. It doesn’t own its sacredness; I impart it.

A wedding ring, on its own, is just a ring. We make the the round band sacred. (Whether or not we actually adhere to its contractual, covenant bond speaks to how sacred {or not} we hold our promise, the ring, and what society says marriage symbolizes.)

What and who are you treating casually that you should instead view as sacred? Your business partner? Coworkers? Spouse? Child? Parents? Your dwelling place that you complain about for its faults or shortcomings instead of being grateful for all it does provide and offer you? (Applies to people too.) Your health? Your work? Your talents? Your community? And on and on it goes.

Stop looking at your life and the people and things in it casually. Enlighten your perspective and extend a sacred attitude to those people and places and possibilities within your life-sphere. Do you look at your significant other/your business agreements/your promise given as sacred? Do your actions match your words?

Don’t diminish the definition of “sacred,” but take inventory of who and what currently resides in your life that you need to “upgrade” to a more sacred level. How would your life look and feel if you treated most of the people and things and happenings in it as sacred? (And how would they respond? And what kind of radical sacred-cycle might that induce, produce, and manifest into your life, your community, and the world?)

testify: verb, to declare a truth or fact; bear witness; publicly profess or proclaim.

What do you think of when you hear “testify”? Court, being under oath? Religious, decreeing belief?

What about a passionate biz-life component?

As in, I testify to living out a radical commitment to my spouse and family. Or I testify that my business services or products are, at their core, designed to enhance people’s daily lives. Or I testify that all I do today, at home and at work, will be done with the intent to improve my life and others’.

What would your day look like with such a statement? How does it make you feel? What evidence and witnesses would you produce to support such a proclamation?

We’re all testifying to something, whether we’re intentional about it or not. What’s your testimony?

quagmire: noun, a “bad situation” or “bog” (actual marshland or swamp, but we more often employ it figuratively to mean “bogged down”). Dilemma. Quandary. Predicament.

We’ve all been there. A place we didn’t intend to land. Sidetracked. Derailed. Freaking hijacked! But instead of looking at this word (and this place) negatively, when you’re stuck in the muck of a quagmire—figuratively or literally—don’t try to leave immediately. Look around. What do you see? Hear? Smell? How do you feel underneath the auto-response of “Get me outta here!”? Change your (mis)perception because a quagmire isn’t all bad.

Physically speaking, marshlands have immense value because they play a crucial role in managing ecological health. This is accomplished precisely because its terrain is set up to protect open space and its natural habitat (you can’t build shopping malls or subdivions in a swamp!). It positively impacts runoff and soil quality. It offers great recreational interactions too, like birdwatching, hiking, and boating. (If you’ve never taken a late-night swamp boat ride, I highly recommend it!)

And our metaphorical quagmires? Get creative. Stand on your head if that’s what it takes to see things from a different angle. Scream at the unfairness of it all. Pray. Sob. Ponder. Open your mind to new possibilities. What ways might this predicament protect you or positively affect your larger life story? The answer may appear in a longer time frame instead of capturing a short-term result. If you had to name some benefits for ending up in the swamp, what might they be? And what do you need to deal with now that you’re here?

I was in a business quagmire earlier this year. I found myself in the swamp soon after Wall Street crumbled in the fall of 2008. In the span of a few months not only did my main client disappear when its budget imploded, every contract job I had (as in 100%) vanished. I didn’t lose any to other companies; clients did away with my work/projects to whittle down their deficits. My regular client work was gone and there was nothing I’d done wrong—and nothing I could do differently to regain it. The worst despair was that my regular income was gone and other intermittent jobs and potential clients were apprehensive. Companies and individuals put themselves in holding patterns, and meanwhile, I still needed to feed my child, eat, and pay the bills.

While mired up, I tried to list the benefits of that stinky, scary swamp. On good days, I could, and faith prevailed. On bad days, don’t ask because fear ruled (and it’s a nasty master). I didn’t enjoy the quagmire. It was not a time of spiritual growth for me. It wasn’t a leisurely time of “catching up” on other life goals. I don’t want to return to learn more lessons. While in the midst of my forced stay I’d cry, I never want to visit this [cursed] place again!

And yet…

I learned huge lessons and absorbed stellar truths. About myself. Business. Legacy. I began implementing things I’d been thinking about for years. Ideas that had been stuck in my brain because I was always so busy and content with all the contract work and jobs that had me on others’ deadlines and goals and schedules. You can’t live on auto-pilot in the quagmire.

A quagmire demands that you change, question, do less, be more, give up “good” things to take up “best” causes. Attitudes and actions materialized only because you’re stranded there, out of your comfort zone. Now, at a distance, I can look back at the “bad situation” and see a heck of a lot of miraculous, magical, monumental greatness came out of it. (And yeah, I admit that even gaining the goody, I don’t want to return there.)

If you’re in a quagmire, it’s OK to be mad. Put your anger to work for you. And put on your thinking cap and use your time there to remember wild dreams and lost aspirations and what you wish your life looked like. Sometimes when nothing seems possible, that’s when we start to consider that anything is possible. After all, no one thing is more out of reach than another if it’s all in a different realm, right? The quagmire isn’t comfortable, but it breeds a depth of truth and creativity that isn’t usually achieved in more luxurious surroundings.

What will you create or discover in your quagmire?