q. shenaynay
Here's my psuedo-profound observation for today:
The common cold is a mocker.
It will hold back your gustiest five-star sneezes until it catches you venturing just past lunging range of the tissue box. It will most especially relish reducing you to this graceless spectacle right after you've spent three weeks endlessly haranguing your 8 year old son to "Use a Kleenex, for cryin' out loud!" (You know, so you wouldn't catch his juicy, jet-propelled germs. Which you did. Obviously.)
It knows how to make everything in your closet look like the scorned refuse from What Not To Wear.
It will mock you for thinking you could still attain some measure of coolness by the usual trick of whipping out your superfly glamour shades, as it now merely assists them in the cruel and wicked accentuation of your big, red, raw, bulbous, honking nose.
But most notably, I observe that no matter who you are, a cold still makes you feel like a moron.
A drippy, gross, slothful, disturbing, socially unacceptable and hopelessly inelegant moron.
Gesundheit.
January 10, 2008
January 6, 2008
Matthew: Inspiration and Flight
q. shenaynay
The passages in Matthew from this past week's readings have brought to mind two paintings that I particularly admire...
[click to enlarge]
The Inspiration of St. Matthew by Caravaggio, 1602; oil on canvas; 292×186 cm; San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.
Ah, the rhythm of the fabrics, the amazing color of Matthew's garment, which glows like fiery embers about to set the world on fire -- and how fitting. I always imagine that the angel is breathlessly telling Matthew, "Oh,yes! I was there! With the heavenly host in the sky that night! There were thousands of us singing, "Glory to God in the highest!"
I look at that quill in Matthew's hand and wonder what it was like to pick up a writing instrument and be divinely inspired. Wow. Wow.
And this one really does something to me:
Rest on the Flight Into Egypt by Luc-Olivier Merson, 1879; oil on canvas; Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Countless artists have depicted the flight of Mary, Joseph and the Christ child into Egypt; you can peruse about a hundred examples here. But I've always had a special affection for this one. Somehow it captures the desolation -- the utter alone-ness -- that young Mary and Joseph faced in fleeing from a powerful, wicked king who was willing to kill all the babes in his kingdom just to ensure the death of their own sweet Child. How horrifying... and yet it really happened.
The image of Joseph sleeping on the cold ground just tears me up, always has. It reminds me to try to appreciate Joseph, to ponder all he gave up for the sake of a child not his own, but to whom he fully belonged... the only man who ever had to grapple with the conundrum of how to be the child of your own child. Beautiful. Confoundingly so.
And what a metaphor Merson created with the warm, living light of the Christ child lighting up that old, dark, cold, dead, mute and blind stone god of the Egyptians.
The passages in Matthew from this past week's readings have brought to mind two paintings that I particularly admire...
[click to enlarge]
The Inspiration of St. Matthew by Caravaggio, 1602; oil on canvas; 292×186 cm; San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.
Ah, the rhythm of the fabrics, the amazing color of Matthew's garment, which glows like fiery embers about to set the world on fire -- and how fitting. I always imagine that the angel is breathlessly telling Matthew, "Oh,yes! I was there! With the heavenly host in the sky that night! There were thousands of us singing, "Glory to God in the highest!"
I look at that quill in Matthew's hand and wonder what it was like to pick up a writing instrument and be divinely inspired. Wow. Wow.
And this one really does something to me:
Rest on the Flight Into Egypt by Luc-Olivier Merson, 1879; oil on canvas; Boston Museum of Fine Arts
Countless artists have depicted the flight of Mary, Joseph and the Christ child into Egypt; you can peruse about a hundred examples here. But I've always had a special affection for this one. Somehow it captures the desolation -- the utter alone-ness -- that young Mary and Joseph faced in fleeing from a powerful, wicked king who was willing to kill all the babes in his kingdom just to ensure the death of their own sweet Child. How horrifying... and yet it really happened.
The image of Joseph sleeping on the cold ground just tears me up, always has. It reminds me to try to appreciate Joseph, to ponder all he gave up for the sake of a child not his own, but to whom he fully belonged... the only man who ever had to grapple with the conundrum of how to be the child of your own child. Beautiful. Confoundingly so.
And what a metaphor Merson created with the warm, living light of the Christ child lighting up that old, dark, cold, dead, mute and blind stone god of the Egyptians.
January 2, 2008
I came, I resolved, I conquered.
q. shenaynay
My main resolution for 2007 was to read the entire Bible in one year. I made others as well, but this was the resolution to which I was most committed.
Little did I know when I made that resolution that I would spend a good part of the last half of the year virtually unable to read due to multiple surgeries and a brain addled by pain medications and distress.
Little did I know how far behind I would lag in the daily readings after each surgery (especially after the one that left me so frail that I couldn't even hold the book for several weeks) nor how hard I would have to work at getting caught up again -- sometimes at a pace of 30-40 pages per day.
And little did I know how very desperately I would need to have a head full of God's words to get me through this past year.
Since I had never before been successful in my various attempts to read through the Bible in a year, I studied several available plans out there, and landed happily on the The One Year Bible KJV. I cannot recommend this reading plan highly enough. It simply works. I also purchased a copy for a very good friend with whom I communicate almost daily, knowing that I would be less inclined to fail if I knew someone close to me was doing it also. I cannot recommend that part of my plan highly enough, either. It did make a difference.
I have re-enlisted again this year, and I invite you to come along with me and make this your utmost and highest resolution for 2008.
You will need it. You just never know how much.
My main resolution for 2007 was to read the entire Bible in one year. I made others as well, but this was the resolution to which I was most committed.
Little did I know when I made that resolution that I would spend a good part of the last half of the year virtually unable to read due to multiple surgeries and a brain addled by pain medications and distress.
Little did I know how far behind I would lag in the daily readings after each surgery (especially after the one that left me so frail that I couldn't even hold the book for several weeks) nor how hard I would have to work at getting caught up again -- sometimes at a pace of 30-40 pages per day.
And little did I know how very desperately I would need to have a head full of God's words to get me through this past year.
Since I had never before been successful in my various attempts to read through the Bible in a year, I studied several available plans out there, and landed happily on the The One Year Bible KJV
. I cannot recommend this reading plan highly enough. It simply works. I also purchased a copy for a very good friend with whom I communicate almost daily, knowing that I would be less inclined to fail if I knew someone close to me was doing it also. I cannot recommend that part of my plan highly enough, either. It did make a difference. I have re-enlisted again this year, and I invite you to come along with me and make this your utmost and highest resolution for 2008.
You will need it. You just never know how much.
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