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Why, pray-tell, did it take those Three Wise Men so long to get to Bethlehem? (I swear if it was me, it would be more like 3,000 years on the road, and with smelly camels — see below — it’s no fun!) I’d maybe pull in by this spring. And that’s if I didn’t part the Red Sea and buy some time, bridges out, camel-lane closures. All but for that classic World Music Tour title, Death On The Road! Perhaps those days, you’d have used up one-tenth of your lifespan when coming close to Persia. Persistence of those countries to cross.

And you thought traveling for Christmas across counties, countries or even continents, could be disconcerting.
What if it’s all or most of Asia? And maybe a bit of Africa?
I will let you in on a little secret, sorry Allison, that was conveyed and continued to build with her input while I was at fave Hudson nightspot trying to Hang Out and Turn Holy Water Into Wine, By The State Line, and sorry to rocker and lyrics author Billy Idol – can I even mention that last name in the season we are in? But hey, it was Jesus himself who did this initially, and it was not a mere musician’s trick, like said in The Ten Commandments movie about pharaoh’s asps being gobbled up like a holiday cheese ball – sorry to my family for inspiring that reference — by Moses’ staff-turned-snake, and I further refer to the hard secular songs Creeping Death and The Writing On The Wall. But I digress, and will spill more of the beans and not wine on that later. (And I could dive very deep into Crowley and his theology, so often occurring in songwriting even by the likes of – maybe – folksters Simon and Garfunkel, but for a later and altar post.)
So back a bit, I let it slip to bartender Allison, and I don’t know how this even came up in conversation, but with her doing her Energizer Bunny routine up and down the stairs – give this woman a raise! – my mind sprung to her activity level as compared to mine and I said: You know, if I was leading the caravan as one of the Three Wise Men, and I coached her on the distance across those multiple Old World countries they had to travel to get to the manger, and the time in years it took to follow The Star, and not a rock star, I myself would’ve first been pulling into Bethlehem in … oh about a half-hour from right now. Wait! Too long! Two-thousands years-plus! (To paraphrase Metallica.) Even once out of the arid acreage, no more shepherds alive to be seen, the short life span considerations of those days aside, much less their sheep.
She said, in her case, maybe even later. But it has been noted by other commentators, she as one of the Three Wise Women probably would have brought Christmas cookies too, and some crepes from France, curry croutons from wherever crossed, and a bottle of the Agave Kitchen cantina’s best to toast the Christ child – and have even asked directions around Yemen (as France, truth be told, was far afield). Or, as when my brother said to those boys assembled at the dinner table at a past Christmas, there are The Three Wise Men, and only one looked up …
OK, the jokes spun from there while at Agave. The Old Testament Methuselah, if traveling with me and despite his advanced age in hundreds of years, would have timed out and become deceased … I don’t think he would have even made it to the Red Sea. Herod Schmered. Pilate long since grounded.
But OK, Those Men In The Fold did travel, apparently, across the length of almost a thousand Israels. That’s a lot of long Arabian Nights. But why did it take so long? I, as always, have a theory.
They had to ride along the length of Persia, right? Some such Arab places did really value cleanliness … You never, ever extended a right hand in greeting, as you know what that one was used for … And camels are not known for their lack of waste. So …
I guess that even back in that day, there was a factor that might have really slowed them down, as there were not as many highway rest stops, as the same number of convenience stores. So with your caravan of camels, and there probably were backup carriers, you probably had to lug along a lotta porta potties behind. (You thought that picking up doggie do-do was bad; in the Third World you don’t have a voice in making most of the rules, and the pooper scooper had not yet been seen outside of say, China, no strike that reference. At least they had Frankensensce — but no crepes, and the Gold Standard would not come about until, say, the time of the Crusades.) But the point being, when porta potties get bogged down, they don’t pull very fast. So gee, maybe those shepherds were wondering why “we” had not yet shown … And the innkeeper with no room couldn’t help, he was not multilingual.
All kidding aside, hope you are not bogged down this holiday!!
And things are more blessed for you than in present-day Bethlehem!

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