Tim Kaine: “I am so happy to join my colleagues on the floor in a very solemn effort to think through the meaning, at a 1-year…”

“I am so happy to join my colleagues on the floor in a very solemn effort to think through the meaning, at a 1-year anniversary, of the attack upon the Capitol on January 6. Today is not only that anniversary. Today, in the Christian tradition, is the Feast of the Epiphany. And I remembered, sitting in the Chamber last year, as we were barricaded in, under attack, and with the confusion all around me, at one point I realized: Today is the Feast of the Epiphany--the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. What is Epiphany? The Feast of the Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the magi at the manger. Wise men of the day saw a portent and disturbance in the sky, and were led to a place where they believed something remarkable would happen. What they found completely surprised them. It wasn't what they were expecting. It wasn't power. It wasn't pomp. It wasn't majesty. It was a tiny baby, born to a family too humble to even get a room at an inn, lying with his mother in a stable, surrounded by barnyard animals. They found something that they couldn't have imagined, and it changed their lives and it changed the world. Why do I reference the Feast of the Epiphany? I reference it because, like many things in the Christian story, it has gone way beyond Christianity. By the middle 1700s or 1800s, the word ``epiphany'' now had a broader use. It was not just about the arrival of the magi at the manger.…”