“And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.”
“Jesus, how can I avoid sin when all these hussies keep revealing the fact that they have bodies?!”
“Hmmm, tough call bro. Have you tried gouging out your eyes so you don’t have to see all those bodies anymore?”
“wut”
“What?”
“Shouldn’t you tell them to… stop dressing like that or something?”
“Don’t see why. It’s not their fault that the fact that they have bodies makes you a fucking sinful horndog. Gotta fix that problem yourself, buddy. Go on, blind yourself.”
“Uh….”
“Or learn to keep it in your g’damn pants no matter what they’re wearing.”
He goes on for like several examples too.
“How can I avoid like, an accidental slip of the hand when…they’re dressin like that?”
“Cut it off.”
“wut”
“Cut it off. Your hand. If it’s a problem, stop having a hand.”
I mean the whole damn point of the Nativity story is that the supposed son of God (interpret Jesus how you fucking want, of course) was born to a couple of poor, exhausted peasants in the stable for the inn, and his first bed was a feeding trough for animals. That would nowadays be like a poor couple where the mother gives birth in a parking garage behind the motel because they couldn’t find a better place and nobody else would take them in. It’s a pretty gritty setting, and the idea is that God was reborn in some of the rock-bottom lowest circumstances. The only thing majestic was all the angels and shit, and of course motherly love
I get that a lot of the art portraying Madonna and Child as fabulously wealthy europeans in splendid robes and golden light was meant to glorify God + whichever nobility was sponsoring the artist, and while of course it’s genuinely beautiful art, it just always struck me as horribly missing the point, which is that the supposed son of God started in incredibly humble circumstances, among the kind of people that everyone else looks down on
‘Massacre des Innocents’ by Leon Cogniét, 1824. Although the Feast of the Holy Innocents is in a couple of days time, this painting is still really relevant in that it portrays Mary as how She really was: a scared refugee mum, so fearful that Her son was going to be one of the Innocents killed by King Herod.
I had to look at this like FIVE TIMES to register all the layers of symbolism going into the piece by Patterson.
The hoodie as a veil.
Weisman cigarettes
Each of them is haloed by an advertisement sticker.
No Vacancy sign on the motel.
Dove sticker over Maria’s head.
Neon sign with a star symbol also over Maria’s head.
The crown over the ‘Dave’s City Motel’ sign. “New Manger.”
The sign behind Jose’s elbow likely says ‘Herod.’
The wee little plant growing through the cracks at their feet.
It’s like a New Testament ‘I Spy.’ I love it!
Ugh.
New favorite interpretation of the nativity.
Ezekiel 34 15-16 on the phone
I looked up that verse and
15 I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord.16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
Wow. The amount of detail that’s put into this piece is amazing.
A man goes to see his Rabbi in a panic, and he gets there and he says, “Rabbi you’ll never guess what! My son has run away to become a Christian!” And the Rabbi responds, “Well you’ll never guess what! My son has also run away to become a Christian!” So the man asks the Rabbi what to do and the Rabbi says that they should pray to G-d. So they pray and tell him of their plight and G-d replies, “You’ll never guess what!”
– An old Hasidic joke that my Dad likes to tell me
Okay, new rule: if you regularly consume the blood and flesh of a demigod in a room full of chanting elders you’re not allowed to call other religions primitive and evil
This is oddly specific and leaves some very interesting questions unanswered.
Catholicism sure does sound weird when you put it that way.
wupacing 