Vatican Seagull

Today here in south-central PA is a rather unpleasant day: certainly, it is pretty enough with its bright blue skies and a beautiful mantle of snow covering everything.  It's unpleasant in that the wind is howling at 20+ MPH and the actual air temp is  in the teens, yielding a wind chill of, I don't know, perhaps zero?

At any rate, my mind goes back a couple months to a much milder day in Rome, where we saw this seagull perched on one of the ramparts of the Vatican:

Image credit Gary

Think warm thoughts!

Cats in Art: Lion Statue in the Vatican (3 of 3)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

The bride and I recently returned from a couple weeks in Europe, the trip of a lifetime.  We first took a Rhine River cruise downstream from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Then we remained 3 more days each in Amsterdam and Rome.  While in Europe, my Cats in Art became a sort of quest for us and the others of our group, so the next few weeks here on Sundays will be focused on our kitty discoveries in the Old World.

Today's subject is the third of three lion sculptures from the Vatican.  One large room of one of their museums was filled with animal sculptures, among them this gem:

Image credit Gary, lion statue in the Vatican

The lions of the past couple weeks appeared to be struggling: thin, desperate-looking.

Not so with this svelte kitty, who appears to be well-fed and contented-looking.  Raising a playful paw, this lion seems ready to bat a ball around or to cuff an unruly cub (unfortunately, I managed to not include a pulled-back shot that would have shown the other lions--cubs, possibly--to either side of the principal lion).

Again, I am astounded at the pure skill that rendered this kitty a couple thousand years ago, and wonder if in his wildest dreams he could have imagined that millions of people would have gazed upon his work.

Cats in Art: Lion Statue in the Vatican (1 of 3)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

The bride and I recently returned from a couple weeks in Europe, the trip of a lifetime.  We first took a Rhine River cruise downstream from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Then we remained 3 more days each in Amsterdam and Rome.  While in Europe, my Cats in Art became a sort of quest for us and the others of our group, so the next few weeks here on Sundays will be focused on our kitty discoveries in the Old World.

Today's subject is the first of three lion sculptures from the Vatican.  One large room of one of their museums was filled with animal sculptures, among them this gem:

Image credit Gary, lion statue in the Vatican

This female lion has brought down a sheep, so I infer that the geographic locale depicted was the near East, perhaps today's Holy Land.  Lions used to roam there but sadly, no more.

This statue is near life sized, and the lion, well, just looks desperate.  She can now eat, but look at her facial expression, her gaunt ribs.  Life has not been kind to this kitty, and the artist was somehow able to magnificently convey that living-on-the-edge moment.  

To do that in stone is nothing short of remarkable.  Not to take anything away from painters, but if your subject kitty's bony ribs don't look right, you just let the paint dry and then paint over it.  Try that with your hammer and chisel.

In the sculpture above, simply note the number of pieces that are hanging free: the legs on each on the animals, the lion's jaw and ears.  Just think about how easily the sculptor could have tapped his chisel a tad too hard...and suddenly it's an "oh shit" moment.  Without the technology of epoxy or superglue, it was game over.

Cats in Art: Leopard Tapestry in the Vatican

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I'm using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

The bride and I recently returned from a couple weeks in Europe, the trip of a lifetime.  We first took a Rhine River cruise downstream from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Then we remained 3 more days each in Amsterdam and Rome.  While in Europe, my Cats in Art became a sort of quest for us and the others of our group, so the next few weeks here on Sundays will be focused on our kitty discoveries in the Old World.

Today's subject is from  the Vatican.  One of their museums is basically a long hall whose walls are covered with magnificent tapestries from antiquity.

image credit Gary, tapestry in the Vatican, no information available as to artist and date

If I recall correctly, this tapestry was about 2' x 4', or perhaps a notch larger at 3' x 5'.  It is of a spotted cat, which would have to be a leopard, as jaguars from the New World would not yet have been known in the Roman Empire.

This poor kitty looks beat: the eyes are sad, the head downcast, the tail drooping.  Maybe it was captured in some far-ranging African expedition, brought back to Europe, and caged for sport (the Coliseum, perhaps?).

At any rate, this poor guy deserved better, but at least his/her image has been preserved for posterity in Rome, to be seen annually by literally millions of humans.  But somehow, we know that this cat just wanted to be home, so hats off to that unknown artist who so faithfully saw and managed to convey the emotions of this long-ago leopard.

A Miracle at my House: Should I Call the "Miracle Commission"?

 

About this painting (image credit here):

 

According to Catholic theology, not only God, but also Satan, can bring about unexplainable phenomena. The Vatican’s theologians therefore scrutinise all testimonies to eliminate the possibility that Satan has been involved in the mysterious circumstances. Only then can the Church regard a healing as a miracle. (Artist: Michael Pacher, Saint Augustine and the Devil, painted between 1471 and 1475)

 

The miracle at my house occurred on Monday about noon.  I put up 12 strings of outdoor icicle lights...and every single string, and every single bulb, lit.

 

That has never happened in my decades of outdoor lighting.

 

I have a call in to the Vatican.  But it turns out that while they are on top of this type of thing, and actually have a "Miracle Commission," it only investigates healing type miracles.  They do not, unfortunately, investigate physical phenomena such as mine since it is NOT medically-related. 

 

The web site I used for the image above and the explanation of the so-called "Miracle Commission" explains how a phenomenon such as mine isn't really in their purview:

 

The miracle commission only investigates miracles associated with healing.  The Vatican does not study phenomena such as weeping Madonna statues and bleeding palms. These phenomena are only studied by the Church’s local people. If they don’t find any evidence of cheating, they can believe in the phenomena if they wish.

So maybe I should call the local priest instead.

Religious (Catholic) Quirks in the Media Age...and Ultrarunning

Seems that the Vatican is trying to become "with it" or "hip":

In its latest attempt to keep up with the times the Vatican has married one of its oldest traditions to the world of social media by offering "indulgences" to followers of Pope Francis' tweets.

The church's granted indulgences reduce the time Catholics believe they will have to spend in purgatory after they have confessed and been absolved of their sins.

The remissions got a bad name in the Middle Ages because unscrupulous churchmen sold them for large sums of money. But now indulgences are being applied to the 21st century.

But a senior Vatican official warned web-surfing Catholics that indulgences still required a dose of old-fashioned faith, and that paradise was not just a few mouse clicks away.

Read the whole story here.

The nexus to Ultrarunning?  Now, if instead of time off Purgatory, if we could get time off the interminable middle part of some of our long runs, now that would be a breakthrough I could endorse.  Might be enough for me to reactivate my dormant Facebook account.

 

A Feminist Perspective

One of my (almost) daily reads is Echidne of the Snakes. I consider myself to be a feminist, and strive to improve my understanding of women's issues by reading some feminist blogs such as Echidne's.

When I went there on Wed after not having visited the site since last week, I found not only 1 post that I thought was worthy about sharing with the Mister Tristan audience, but 4 such posts. Note: the blog is continuous, sequenced by date, so you'll just need to scroll down to see the separate posts mentioned below:

1.  Repentance During The Holy Week of Christianity (30 March): about the Pope's complicity in covering up the rape of children. 

They tell us that they are speaking on behalf of a divine source, after all. They tell us how we should live our lives, what is wrong and what is right. For all this they get freedom from taxes, lots of kowtowing and respect. Something has to be given in return, and at a minimum that something should be higher ethical standards of personal behavior.

2.  The Black Widows (also 30 March): about the recent Russian female suicide bombers.

"While there is no single reason women decide to give up their lives, experts say they have usually suffered a traumatic event that makes them burn with revenge or question whether they want to live. This can be the death of a child, husband or other family member at the hands of Russian forces or a rape. Russian authorities have said the women are sometimes drugged."

And why do men become suicide bombers or terrorists? What drives them to do that? That question is not asked as often which is insulting to men. It's as if all men could just become suicide bombers and we don't really have to wonder about the reasons they have, however distorted they may be.

3.  Stripped Bare (29 March): about banning strip clubs in Iceland, and particularly the variations in how newspapers covered same.

That's where we stand: The Icelandic ban on strip clubs is under lifestyles/women and the U.S. coverage is a concern about spending tax money on the titillation of men who work for the Republican party.

4.  A Small Corrupt Clique of Men Shouldn’t Rule Anything by Anthony McCarthy (27 March): another about the corruption in the Vatican hierarchy (and, I hasten to add, NOT against the rank and file ordinary Catholics who do good work from within the church).

The use of scripture to explain things is a sometimes thing and, at times, a two edged sword. The vast variety of texts by different authors writing in various conditions and of varying experience passed down to us in copies of varying textual quality and authenticity, lends itself to contradiction. But I don’t believe the text in which Jesus said that people who corrupted children would have been better of drowned with a millstone around their neck is really ambiguous. Pope Benedict has had a hand in corrupting children. Many Cardinals such as Bernard Law have permitted the abuse of children...But this pope, who has been among the greatest proponents of the revival of confession, is stonewalling on his own, disqualifying, sins. The hypocrisy of the conservatives in control of the hierarchy doesn't seem to have a bottom.