God knows there was very little glitter in our house when I was a child.
But what little there was, I loved; and I was always sad on Twelfth Night to see it go.
And I’d feel so sorry for the Christmas tree, stripped of all her finery and put out in the street with the rubbish.
And it seems strange that we should celebrate the Three Kings and their gifts, but not the shepherds and theirs.
But it’s maybe to do with the fact that Christians started celebrating Epiphany round about 300; about the time the emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire.
The time Christians stopped being victims of persecution, and very quickly began to be its perpetrators.
And being in love with power, they wouldn’t be interested in a feast day for shepherds.
But would embrace one for kings…
Except maybe they weren’t kings but Magi, astrologers and magicians; and maybe they weren’t kings either, but like me were eunuchs.
And maybe that was the source of their wisdom and power…
Maybe that was one inspiration for this story.
“The Wise Kings did bring the most incredible gifts…” is how the story goes in “The Gospel According To Jesus Queen Of Heaven”,
And Natalia Mallo, turning the script into Portuguese, translated “wise kings” as “wise queens” and I love that.
Maybe that was another…
And yet another was a story Kate O’Donnell told me; another an encounter with the lovely drag queen Queen Lill, who once did my makeup.
These are two wise queens who have taught me much.
I think also in there is a vision of an alternate me.
A me who discovered her talent playing girls when she was 15, and was allowed to develop and explore and express that talent.
Instead of being forced to suppress it…
It hurts to think about that alternate me, because if she’d been allowed to exist I know she would have saved me so many years of suffering.
But then she would have exposed me to suffering of a different kind…
So I try not to think of this; and besides, I’m proud of who I am and what I’ve achieved.
So the voice in the story that follows is both me… and not me.
I’ve a feeling this will be the first of a series of stories that will belong to the Book of the Gospel of Jesus The Queen.
The Shepherds are coming next week; and maybe the temptations after that. We’ll see.
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