Someone Said

 I first went Epiphany chalking four years ago. On a fine January afternoon, Samantha, a teenager in my church, and I waltzed all through our neighborhood, fat yellow box of Crayola chalk in hand. (I told myself that I was doing something noble by spending my afternoon with a church teen, but I suspect that in reality I invited Samantha on my chalking expedition mostly so that I could have an excuse for doing something that might, at first blush, seem a little less than adult.)

We chalked the doors to my apartment, and we chalked the doors to Samantha’s house and her mom’s office, and the doors to the houses of some friends and neighbors. And then we got a little carried away. We started knocking on the doors of people we did not know and offering to chalk their houses. It felt a little like we were selling Girl Scout cookies — except, of course, folks neither had to pay us, nor did they get any Thin Mints out of the deal.

In a 2006 article for Boundless.org, Lauren Winner writes about the Epiphany tradition of blessing of the home. With white chalk, write the following visual blessing on or over the main door: 20+C+M+B+12. The numbers change with each new year. The three letters stand for either the ancient Latin blessing Christe mansionem benedica, which means, “Christ, bless this house,” or the legendary names of the Magi (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar).