January 6: Epiphany and Democracy Engaged
January 6: The Day of Epiphany in the Church Year.
January 6: Democracy Day in America.
Democracy Day in America: doing two things. One, observing the riotous and murderous assault on the U. S. Capitol to disrupt and cancel the transfer of power and leadership by Congress’s certification of the Electoral College votes after the General Election. Two, commemorating the sacrifice and determination of Law Enforcement personnel along with Congressional Leaders to fulfill their duty-bound obligation to complete the proper Election Certification on that day.
All this, this Democracy Day, is not about Joe Biden or his political party winning the next election. It is about Democracy beating back Totalitarianism and Fascism. We absolutely must see this and act on it. Just as July 4, 1776 and September 17, 1787 are so much now unconsciously celebrated by so many Americans without regard for the political and personal sacrifice it took then to establish a government genuinely, however stumbling and imperfectly with all the inherent challenges, committed to the vote of the people and the rule of the law, so now January 6 of each year should be now consciously observed and dedicated to all the work, effort and sacrifice it takes to defeat the forces that would suppress voting, violate the U.S. Constitution and criminalize those who oppose Authoritarian Rule.
January 6 is Democracy Day in America. In my life, January 6 has always meant the Day of The Festival of the Epiphany, the day in the Christian Church yearly calendar where we recognize the life and mission of Jesus Christ is a beacon, a light, to all ethnicities, all peoples, all nations, without boundaries of nation-state and caste. This Light that shatters Darkness is the source of peace for all nations. America is not a or the “City on a Hill” with a Manifest Destiny that is God ordained for all to see. America is not guaranteed to succeed in its government. America, like all nations, is a plodding people trying to make good on what glimpses of that Epiphaned Light we are able to discern. But Americans have made choices, and sacrifices, to establish and continue to improve (think of the Women’s Suffrage Movement culminating in 1920 and still moving forward and the Civil Rights Movement culminating in 1965 and still moving forward, to say nothing of the Civil War of the 1860’s) a Constitutional Government where freedom reigns but that is also responsible for the care-taking of all and not the privilege of the few.
Perhaps the light of a January 6th Epiphany can fuel the energy needed for a January 6th Democracy. It does for me. But even if it does not, even if Epiphany’s January 6 is dead to you, maybe the valor and honor of all the dead (including those of January 6, 2021) who died so that Democracy can live, will enliven us all to the task of freedom and justice for all that is now before us.
