Set it Down

Journey of the Magi

But set down, set this down. This: we were led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly.

We see another possible allusion here, this time to Shakespeare’s Othello. These are the Moor’s dying words, “set you down this.” Having lived most of his life as an “outsider”—a Muslim Moor who converted to Christianity—he finally sees himself as a powerful man. The poem never mentions Christ by name but is nonetheless a struggle about the issues of ethnicity and identity. The Magi, too, are aliens, “others” in a Jewish world.

Yes, there was a Birth and the speaker marks its importance with a capital letter. But what of the second word, “birth”? Here is where the speaker wonders at his own conversion, his “second birth” as he abandons the secular world and dies to himself. TS Eliot sees Birth and Death as equal, but opposite. While Eliot admits he wrote this poem quickly, it was at the request of his publisher, Geoffrey Faber, who wanted to illustrate it with Christmas images and sell it as a memento. He dashed it off quickly, he says.

But later on, Eliot began to give more importance to this poem. One, it ended a rather dry writing spell. Two, it became the portent of his most famous poem, “Ash Wednesday.”

This leads to my own reason for writing, for spending precious time at a very hectic time of the year researching and reflecting on this favorite poem, “Journey of the Magi.” I am “setting it down,” the challenges of those years of spousal caregiving, the downright dirty work of it all, not to gain sympathy but to point to God and His grace at a time when I desperately needed both. They have not been easy words to write, because reliving those years is tough. But so are many things we are called to do.

REFLECTION:

Journaling has always been a part of my life and the reason I believe I kept my sanity (most of it, anyway) during those 23 years. Writing “it down” helped me to reconcile myself to what was my current life. How have you come to terms with your own difficult journey? What has allowed you to find peace during the trials?