Maybe it is inevitable that any attempt to portray sacred imagery intersects with an examination of the self.\u00a0 A maker of such images should be worthy of creating them, and if not, what stain is transferred to the image unintended, perhaps undetected \u2013 but transferred, all the same.\u00a0 The question of worthiness can\u2019t be avoided as the mysteries themselves deal directly with the health and well-being of the human soul. They are an unavoidable reminder of the frailty of human nature.<\/p>\n
A meditation on each set of mysteries invites us to find communion with them, a connection that asks us to think beyond the surface.\u00a0 What is being said, who is saying it, and what is the meaning behind their actions, all give us artifacts to contemplate and piece together.\u00a0 But that movement orients us toward the transcendent, and the light of the transcendent can illuminate many flaws and regrets.\u00a0 These mysteries have a personal quality; they cannot be seen properly without an understanding that they ultimately encompass the individual and everything beyond. We are not separate from them.<\/p>\n
In one of my old photo albums, there is a set of rosary cards designed to focus the devout on these mysteries.\u00a0 They are brightly colored, a marked contrast to the old photos within. I can\u2019t help but wonder what these mysteries meant to the people in this album; how many of their quiet prayers still echo through time?\u00a0 The faces in those old Polaroids seem out of focus and distant behind the worn, cracked emulsion\u2014the physical manifestation of my fading recollections, these portals to another time and dimension.\u00a0 I wonder what secrets they carried with them.\u00a0 So many of them have long since left to meet what lies beyond the temporal veil \u2013 their secrets at last revealed.<\/p>\n
One picture always gives me pause: an image of my grandfather, a simple carpenter who was born and died in Western Iowa.\u00a0 His look in that image always struck me as forlorn, washed in the light of that setting sun.\u00a0 I see in his expression a man who contemplated similar questions.\u00a0 The deeply etched lines in his antique face tell me so.<\/p>\n
In the image, he looks beyond the sun to a place where the infinite and perfect meet, and I find in that a kinship beyond the familial.\u00a0 Like every reflective man, he must have seen the fullness of his human failings.\u00a0 But the perfect must intersect with the imperfect, or the very definition of perfect is unknown, its intentions unfulfilled.\u00a0 His boundless love could not be expressed.\u00a0 His lessons could not be learned. I find in this a part of an answer, and through my grandfather\u2019s eyes, I see the sort of reluctant acceptance that we must be present in the face of the Creator of all being, even in our sad and imperfect state.<\/p>\n
The understanding that we are fallible has always been the burden of man, but the promise that we can be made perfect is His divine gift.\u00a0 So, I begin this work in the state I find myself today, but perhaps through the simple progression of meditation on story and the application of paint on linen, I\u2019ll find myself in a better place through my own discoveries, my own reluctant acceptance.<\/p>\n
I say goodbye to that old man, leaving him to his setting sun, and return the album to its place on the shelf.\u00a0 In the quiet, I am reminded of his death at exactly the age I am now.\u00a0 I wonder what it must be like to encounter the infinite at long last.\u00a0 And where is that inflection point between what we must know and the time we have left?<\/p>\n
For Willis Gordon Comfort<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maybe it is inevitable that any attempt to portray sacred imagery intersects with an examination of the self.\u00a0 A maker of such images should be worthy of creating them, and if not, what stain is transferred to the image unintended, perhaps undetected \u2013 but transferred, all the same.\u00a0 The question of worthiness can\u2019t be avoided as the mysteries themselves deal directly with the health and well-being of the human soul. They are an unavoidable reminder of the frailty of human nature. A meditation on each set of mysteries invites us to find communion with them, a connection that asks us… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thoughts-notes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n