January 6 is the day we celebrate as Epiphany, the beginning of a season in the church for us to pause and reflect on the ways in which God shows himself, allows his presence and work to be noticed. Historically, the church has focused specifically on several showings: the improbable arrival of the gift-bearing magi to Jesus and his parents in Bethlehem; God’s declaration over Jesus at his baptism; and Jesus’s first miracle at the wedding in Cana.
Walking together Saturday afternoon through the wooded paths of Birmingham’s Red Mountain Park, my husband, Dean, and I wondered together about situations and circumstances in our own lives which we could name as “God-showings.” We each wrinkled our foreheads, wishing for a long list of obvious examples, reaching deep into our memories to sift for a few instances that might qualify. Together, we remembered times when friends gifted us with finances at just the right, needful moment. We remembered conversations we feared would be painfully confrontational, which unexpectedly became spaces filled with surprising grace. One such precious showing had come in August of 2023. We arrived at the home of Dean’s elderly parents to hesitantly break the news of Dean’s invitation to join the Cathedral Church of the Advent’s clergy team in Birmingham, fearing what would surely be an emotional, disapproving response at the thought of a move so very far from them. Instead, they listened with shining eyes, before explaining that they had felt an increasing expectancy within themselves that God had something new for us and had been praying about such a move for some months. Rather than conflict, we were surprised by an astonishing grace.
This December our daughter traveled from snowy Moose Jaw to Birmingham for a southern Christmas with us. Thanks to a kindly parishioner at the Advent, Emily and I drove south on December 20 in order to spend three nights at a beachfront condo on the beautiful Gulf coast of Florida. It was Emily’s first trip to the Gulf. We took long walks over the sugar-sand beach, rolling up our pant-legs as we strolled through the warm surf. We watched sanderlings and gulls pattering along the water’s edge, while brown pelicans soared nearby. And Emily told me how much she longed to see dolphins, dolphins like the ones she remembered from when she lived several weeks on a Greek sailboat in the Aegean.
I was on the condo balcony early our first morning. Gazing out to sea with my binoculars, in the distance I spotted three of them, their dark grey bodies curving briefly above the water as they surfaced for breath. Should I wake Emily? I hesitated – and by the time I roused her to join me on the deck, the dolphins had traveled out of sight, leaving Em disappointed.
Sunday morning I was again out early, seeking for signs of dolphins among the whitecaps and morning mist. Despite my diligence, I didn’t find any. Once again, Em was disappointed.
On our final morning, I packed my bags for our drive north to Birmingham and our planned Christmas Eve celebration the next day. I slid the glass door aside, stepping into the early sunlight on the deck. Large breakers ran up the beach below, translucent-green where sun shone behind each rising wave before it curled and dropped into white foam on the shore.
I reflected again about how Emily longed to see dolphins and how much I wanted her to have that joy, a gift at Christmas. And I felt sober, recognizing that despite all the ways that God had met us in the past, I felt reluctant to pray about this. Praying to see dolphins seemed immature, a set-up for disappointment. And yet I thought it would be okay, in the sparkling blue-and-white aliveness of the day, to bravely (though not too loudly) lay my desire out before God. Not to ask God to make dolphins appear ex nihilo. I knew better than that. Simply to ask with my puny bit of faith that, if dolphins were out there, he would give us eyes to see them.
Emily joined me on the deck and we looked together out to sea. It was beautiful and so quiet. She settled herself on the deck chair and I went into the kitchen to make chai.
Moments later, Emily excitedly called me back outside. Dolphins, yes, dolphins! There she stood looking out to sea with my binoculars, watching what were likely the same three dolphins I’d seen two days earlier. Though I never located them, she joyfully followed their brief, distant appearances through the binoculars until they receded from view down the shoreline. In awed gratitude, I sheepishly confessed my tentative dolphin prayer from earlier that morning. We looked into each other’s happy eyes and felt deeply thankful.
Together, we ate our breakfast in the happy afterglow of the dolphin sighting. It was the perfect ending to our beach getaway to sit side-by-side in golden sunshine, sipping our foamy chai, reflecting on the Christmas celebration to come.
And then Emily’s voice called out once again, “Mom!” She pointed, but this time I didn’t need binoculars to see them. A whole pod of dolphins, ten, maybe thirteen of them, playfully riding the crystal-clear waves in the shallows directly offshore. We could see three or four at a time, their whole bodies vividly clear in each rising wave. Excitedly leaping to our feet, we pointed, ecstatic, eager not to miss any of it. Then, incredibly, some of the dolphins began to leap out of the water, creating such a show that you might have thought they knew they were playing to an audience, a little audience of two delighted, exulting women.
The dolphins gradually moved west up the shoreline, away from us and out of sight. When they were gone, Emily and I stood gazing at one another, caught on the edge of laughter. That was when I felt it, a warming, laughing presence all around us, sharing in our joy. Epiphany. God, out of his generosity, answered my feeble little prayer so beautifully, so extravagantly, far more abundantly than I could have imagined or asked for. Joy flowed up from my chest, into my throat and eyes, releasing a wave of grateful, worshipful tears. What could be better at Christmas than to know ourselves the recipients of God’s gracious giving, showing up in unexpected and beautiful ways?
– Darlene Pinter