This isn't art but its a sort of arty farty mistake. I got back from my class the other night and found this in the CF card. At first I thought it was a gremlin, then a religious experience or vision or I was drunk. Then I realised what I had done (silly me) and cropped it a bit, smoothed out the colours and hey presto! I should make mistakes more often.
Its not something I would purposely go for myself. All a bit 'over the mantle piece' surrounded with icons and candles or displayed in a card shop with some inane to accompany it like 'May all your Christmas's come at once'
But, ****, there are plenty of people out there with bad taste.
Well, John,
You may have your mind closed at this point, but just in case there's still a crack to let the light in, (and for the record) I offer you this:-
I had to look at everything again and try to discover where the offense was. Now I see that you might feel that there's a shape resembling a crucifixion on the beach. It hadn't occurred to me before!!!!
Do you know who is writing these comments? It's an Australian. They'll insult their closest friends with profanities and that means they love you! They're are even worse on themselves; called self-depreciating humor and Tom's a natural at it. He's not insulting
you, he's being introspective and having a vision on the beach! It's as if he had a vision. He's just being poetic and not meaning to be a lout or hooligan as you seem to think.
The sign of the cross is part of plains Indian cultural totem pole symbolism and was leveraged by Belgian Catholic missionaries to connect with and convert the folk. The cross is part of most cultures, Jewish, Muslim or whatever. We see the shape everywhere and the symbolism is behind the vision. To
crucify someone is now part of the language of revenge and unfair punishment in the workplace and there it does not refer to religion at all!! Folk who use it are not
knowingly referring to Christ, just the unfair punishment!!
There's a picture of a lone tree on the brow of a hill, here in OPF, and I referred to Christ's crucifixion, and discussed it at length as the shape buttressed the feeling of the abandonment and starkness of the tree with two outstretched branches. I'm Jewish, but the symbolism is part of all cultures now. (I used to teach the headmaster's classes in New Testament in return for private French lessons when I was in high school in the UK, and I cannot believe it myself, LOL!)
Tom would not plan to hurt your feelings. He'd call you something shameful, disgusting and awful,
if he really liked you, and buy you a beer! He's a bloody Australian and that's how they do things when they're going at full steam! All language is metaphorical, even "up" and "down". I wouldn't let Tom's comments offend you. However, if Tom was next to you and he saw with his own eyes how taken back you'd be, he's express regret, otherwise, he's be miles down the track with not the slightest concept of any deep pain you'd felt.
This is very different from someone saying "dirty Jew" to me on the way to school. They mean it and that's why I there was a policeman escorting us every day when I was a small child. Same as the spitting and frightening of little Catholic girls in Ireland, shouting at them, "Mary lovers!" as the kids were forced to to walk through a gauntlet of hostile Orange Protestant women. The neatly dressed marched bravely on children marched in twos and that sight broken my heart. It's etched in my mind and that nightmare will never leave.
You may have used the name of
the holiest place in Islam, for some oases of utopian shopping where everyone makes their destination. That's the place where one can shop and buy
anything you want, nothing is missing, nothing is out of stock or unavailable.
But then you'd cause far deeper pain and fury than Tom did here and no amount of explanation would remove it. But that's the downside of the use of words in cultures that are strange to each other.
BTW, we do have
beautiful work on the cross too.
here, or even
here and many other places too! Why not stick around and celebrate these and ignore the odd rain drops that get in your face?
Look at
this last image and you will understand how the crucifix has embedded itself in our common heritage.
Asher
