When the Magi travelled across the desert, their journey must have been full of impossible difficulties. I'm no expert, but I can vouch for two things: hills and camels. I've been to Israel, and there is not a square foot of flat ground there; you're either going up a hill, or down a hill. And riding a camel is like being on a moving hill.
What I'm saying is, the journey would have been an immense challenge. Plus the sand storms, the hot days, the freezing nights, and the whole lack of available water situation. So what kept the Magi going? They probably could have stopped at a beautiful spring, where women in shot silk scarves carried carved pots of water on their heads. And stayed there. Why did they keep going?
They followed a star. Maybe they didn't know where the star was taking them, but they knew it was something good. Something worth all the endless barren desert, the gripping your camel for dear life over the rough and steep terrain, the relentless thirst, the potential of failure and the uncertainty.
But they tied themselves to that star, and they kept going.
If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things; if we consider ourselves so unimportant that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have the time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Maji? Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds? Or brood over the coming of the child as did Mary? For each one of us, there is a desert to travel. A star to discover. And a being within ourselves to bring to life.
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