The remnants of the three magi are scattered in front of the nativity scene.  It is well past Christmas and the clean-up has just begun.  Last night the forty foot tree on the Malecon was dismantled.  In chequered yellow the rabbit hides her ears and dances into the seasonal remnants like a couple of kids clustered around a horse head.  The bronze statue is polished by years of visitors rubbing away the oxidization to reveal the patina. Whether a donkey or horses head the theme  is synchronous with the 2026 Chinese New Year.

 

When viewed from left or right the horse head image not only marks smileage, but also a bespectacled cover for the bright starlight that dragged the magi through the dark nights of their souls into the manager.  Now babies are cute and cuddly but the messed metaphors of cradle and manger and swaddling cloths and shepherds and wise dudes creates one swollen horse head image  Go get the donkey and if anyone asks tell them the master needs it.  OK enough horsing around with a good idea!

Back to the magi (those sooth speakers from far away) they remind me of that soothing story of David calming (soothing) the dark spirit in Saul. The story ends with a line that I borrowed from Diana Butler Bass where she underscores that the wisemen did not cater to the popular demands of Herod but chose to go home “by another way.”  The line underscores the choice we have in these dim lit times.  We can at anytime acknowledge that we will no longer play the game.  Herod and his chopping-off of heads power may not be our road home.  We can say we have no King and we can say we need ICE-melt by simply going another way.  The horsing around with seasonally adjusted props may be the beginning of another way. Just a hop skip and jump away.