A message from my dog

In December, I received the following card that turned out to be my favorite surprise of the season: “A Holiday Message from the Dog you Killed…”

 Inside was a silly poem. In typical doggy generosity and faithfulness – Bing forgave me and wished me a Merry Christmas. HOW did Hallmark Cards know? All I can think is that I must not be alone for this to be a salable topic.

A friend who read the first chapter of The Exact Place found this card SOMEwhere. In my defense, I would LIKE to remind everyone that it was an ACCIDENT. Although it is true that this was strictly against the rules I didn’t want him to get hurt when I set him on the horses.  “With a flying kick, Duke sent Bing somersaulting through the air until he rested quietly on the floor of the woods among decaying leaves and tiny blue violets. From a distance he looked like a still life, a bouquet of small white flowers pushing through the chilled earth….a tiny marsh of blood forming beside his head.”

 

I still think of Bing occasionally and wonder if dogs will be in heaven. Sometimes I imagine being joyfully greeted and bowled to the ground (gently) by all the pets we ever knew. All these creatures God has made and that we have cared for and loved or not loved as well as we should have…. I give thanks for them.

Less than a feast on the e-table

     The following recent conversation was instructive. I've been pondering my lack of education in many areas anyway. And my Olympic ability to humiliate myself. Still, I am resolved to go ahead with life and laugh at myself as I keep on learning.

     On Friday, Jan 4, 2013, at 6:56 AM,  I received an email from Steve F.:

Just read this piece on Caravaggio - painting and the mystery of faith. Thought you would appreciate it, too.

Steve F.

Here's a link to Caravaggio's painting:

The Denial of St. Peter by Caravaggio

     At 11:35 AM Margie wrote:

     Thank you, Steve.

As I read the piece and hadn't as yet looked at the painting itself, I thought perhaps the servant girl would be looking toward the source of light, but I see, as Meis describes, she is not. Possibly this reveals my own desire for spiritual recognition to be that simple and straightforward for people. Turn to Jesus. It isn't. I agree she has gone interior and something is happening. Perhaps she recognizes a crossroad. A dawning light. And her choice is to turn from it, but we don't know in the next second what her choice will be.

I enjoyed the essay and wish I could see the painting in real space and time.

The mysteries of faith continue.

mlh

     At 2:52 P.M Drew T. wrote:

Sorry, I don't buy any of it. Bad painting with an unintentionally cross-eyed girl in it. Peter looks like Plato reasoning with a student. This painting is deservedly one of his least interesting.

Drew

     At 3:23 PM, Denis Haack wrote:

I hesitated to say anything, but since Drew has spoken, I'll add my one and

half cents. That Caravaggio was technically superb is not debatable, as is the

fact that he had a huge influence on artists that followed him. My main

problem with this painting, though, has been that it seems to kowtow to

Rome, a propagandistic use for Caravaggio's art and skills. In Scripture

Peter denies aggressively, eventually with swearing, yet Caravaggio pictures

him as taciturn and meek, even mild and shy. Caravaggio was a violent drunk,

on the run for murder and headed to Rome near the end of his life where he

hoped to be pardoned by the pope so as to avert the punishment for his

crime. (Actually more than one violent crime: he also assaulted another man

but had escaped from prison.) This painting was done in the last year of his

life just at this juncture. I've always thought it the work of man trying to

make Rome like him by depicting St Peter the way he does--Caravaggio's

trying to weasel out of the trouble he's brought on himself by a lifetime of

decadent living. One of his weaker works, because of the use to which he

uses his skills.

Denis

     At 4:02 p.m. Andy C. wrote:

I have to admit, I need more than that article gave me to convince me that

1) this is a great painting

2) it is about what the writer thinks it's about

3) it converted the entire Western tradition of painting (ahem.)

But it's an interesting reading and there's no doubt there are some

interesting things going on in the work.

Andy

     At 4:41 PM Margie wrote:

Denis, Drew, Andy, Steve,

I think someone made a comment in my name….

Really, I don't know who since I don't know that much about

Caravaggio. But I'm quite sure I don't like him.

mlh

(By this time I felt very sorry I’d said anything at all.)

Later.

When I asked permission to publish our conversation and they all said yes, Steve F. confessed the following: (Which I admired and made me feel much better about myself. But not totally because I missed the Trent/Reformation thing.)

“I share your e-red-faced horror after I discovered in my colossal ignorance I had put something on the e-table that was less than a feast…. But I learned a lot... and was very glad to learn.

What I found intriguing is that no one commented on what I think was the theological idea at the center of the article – the contrasting Trent/Reformation perspectives on art.  If the author is to be trusted (and that is now in question after the barrage of anti-Caravaggio criticism elicited by my email), I find myself landing more on the side of Trent (gasp!)”

Breaking Up

“I have had a delightful windfall: £5 worth of books as a prize from College for getting a First. Oh ye gods, if this had come four or five years ago, what raptures and debatings, what making and re-making of lists had been! As it is was I had great difficulty in making them out at all, being perpetually haunted by the fear that I should afterwards find out that I had got all the things I really did NOT want. It is a dismal sign of breaking up and old age that I look forward to their arrival with very luke warm pleasure."     -  The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves.

Lewis was 22 years old when he wrote this!

Hmmm. I don’t know what this is a “sign of” since I am probably “breaking up” with old age according to this, but yesterday when three books arrived in the mail and I was delighted. I felt excitement as Denis pulled the strap of the envelope and handed me a book carefully wrapped in white paper. All of them are available at  Hearts &Minds Books .

These are the books:

1.     The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” by Alan Light. Denis has dibs on this one.

2.     QU4RTETS a collection of art and essays from an Exhibition on T.S. Elliot’s poems “Four Quartets.” Anita gets this one first because of her constant art-making.

3.     The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson. I’ve been eagerly waiting for this memoir of his journey through life. He was born in 1939 – now I want to hear Peterson’s wisdom. I want to know what he says about life, death, resurrection and how to keep on following Jesus through it all.