I Like to Hear About the Three Kings...

I know the Christmas season is past. Too soon really. I think one of my favorite parts is the Epiphany, when the three kings come to see the Christ Child in the Manger. Brings up a lot of images, the strange lands they came from, probably wild and war torn then, same now. There is also how they went back, "by another way" the Scripture says. Maybe we could prolong the season if we could hear about what happened on the trip back.

Then there is the song, "We Three Kings." It's one of those you only get to play once a year, if you are doing your music liturgically. We generally play it the traditional manner, though bilingual and I dream of maybe doing it a little different some times as I think about the three kings and their journeys and what they saw. I hear in my head bass lines shaped like a camels hump, sliding over a horizon of shifting sand dunes. I don't play them. I keep 'em to myself, it's my place, don't see how you can be there. Going "by another way" you know.

Here is some nativity art by Cathy's great great grandfather, Ferdinand Pribyl. It's on display at the University of Texas Institute of Texas Cultures. It's called the Staha Nativity because Prybil gave it to Staha in about 1900. While at college, Morgan made friends with a fellow named Jerrod, he's actually a character playing guitar on some of these pages. They discovered that it was Morgan's great great great grandfather who gave Jerrod's great great grand father this nativity.

Here's another one, the Stockbauer nativity.

For more info on Nativity art, read here:

http://www.ornamentalturner.com/Pribyl/artwork.htm

Just some thoughts for going another way today.