I sung a song, as part of St. Olaf’s Manitou Singers, titled, “Past Three O’clock.” The song, an old English carole, is a Christmas piece about the birth of the christ child. Though I sung it nearly eighteen years ago, I still remember the melody and the strange winter magic that the composer captured in that particular arrangement. The song plays loud in my head this early morning as I look at the clock on my cell phone and see that it is just past three A.M..
Just past three A.M.. An hour when thieves seem to run my neighborhood streets stealing cars and breaking into homes. An hour that isn’t quite night, but isn’t quite morning. An hour that stretches long enough for murders to be undertaken, for cars to crash and babies to need feeding. An hour where the moon has set but the sun is far from rising. An hour, just like any hour, some would say. But it is for me, an hour that always seems to catch me off guard with how it holds my fears, my concerns and my deep desire to leave this life.
Am I talking about suicide? Not really. I am talking about the desire to leave the life I am living, Am I talking about packing up and changing towns, houses, jobs? Not really. I am talking about the quest for my soul, and how, somehow, I just can’t find it in this life. There is something tangible missing inside of me. This isn’t something I’ve lost, rather it is something that I have never had. This magical conglomeration of beauty, contentment, peace, groundedness has never been mine, rather it has been the grail that haunts my dreams.
My mind turns to, “Three O’clock Blues,” by B.B. King. It is nice to know that I am not alone in this hour. In fact, I am comforted to realize, through a quick search on iTunes, that the hour of three A.M. holds unlimited grief and longing within the hands of sixty minutes.
well now its three o' clock in the mornin’
and I can't even close my eyes
three o' clock in the mornin’
and I can't even close my eyes
can't find my baby
and I can't be satisfied
I think of the magi and their archetypal quest for the christ child. The myrrh, the incense, the golden nugget; everything is brought on the search. It all has to come because there is no other search like it and it takes everything to survive the journey. This isn’t the pursuit for just a swaddling clothed mewing human child. Rather, it is the all out expedition for the divinity within, the flash of creativity that started the world and the desire to know why your heart keeps beating.
