Recently Robert and I visited Southern Belle Farms in McDonough GA. Walking to the side of their fabulous country market, HR yelled, “Neal, look! Baby Jesus on a truck!”
And sure enough, as I got closer, I saw them—all the stars of the traditional crèche: Mary, Joseph and the Baby. The Three Wise Men. An Angel. A Shepherd and his Sheep.
All mounted on an old school farm truck!
Robert started pointing and giving a little impromptu lecture about the various Nativity personnel, as if I were a toddler new to Sunday School.
Mentally asleep for a while in his mansplaining words, I finally woke up and asked, “What do you think happened to Mary’s left arm?”
“Neal, you’re missing the whole point of the display!” he sputtered as he huffed off toward the Kettle Corn stand.
I stood there for a while, pondering about what was missing. Until I finally followed the buttery scent to the Kettle Corn and to Robert.
So the other evening Robert and I drove over to daughter Amy‘s house on Skidaway Island (Savannah) to walk doggy Coastal while her fam was out of town.
Coastal was a tad impatiently ready.Coastal’s Parents’ Holiday-Happy Garage Doors
When Coastal, HR and I started meandering toward the next-door neighbor’s house, we saw this …
Wait, you need it in color. So let’s send Robert closer.
Either very cute or terrifying! This Rudolph has to be the biggest reindeer in the history of the world.
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I was so startled that a few of my photos came out quirky because of my nervously, shaking hands …
Or did that Holiday Giant have special Holiday Powers?
We urged Coastal to finish her business quickly and hastened our way back to the safe house.
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We left Coastal and her brother-from-another-mother Little Kitty at peace and watching the chimney with care.
From December 1-25, I’m sharing a quote and its truth from John Fugelsang’s Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists and Flock-Fleecing Frauds, the book Robert and I are currently and fascinatingly reading.
An odd Advent Calendar, of sorts.
Today, Fugelsang writes:
“Jesus was a nonprofit prophet, but was he really a socialist? The short answer’s no, because socialism didn’t exist yet. But let’s point out:
He never owned property.
He said, ‘It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.’
He told people to pay their taxes.
He never healed the blind and then billed them.
He never gave anyone a mandatory drug test before dispensing some loaves and fishes.
I’ll never say Jesus was a socialist. But I will say if he were alive now and preaching the exact same message, right-wing Christians would call him one.” p. 190
From December 1-25, I’m sharing a quote and its truth from John Fugelsang’s Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists and Flock-Fleecing Frauds, the book Robert and I are currently and fascinatingly reading.
An odd Advent Calendar, of sorts.
I love this humorous point the author makes at the beginning of his preface:
“I’ve come to view Jesus the way I’ve come to view Elvis.
I love the guy, but some of the fan clubs terrify me.”
From December 1-25, I’m sharing a quote and its truth from John Fugelsang’s Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists and Flock-Fleecing Frauds, the book Robert and I are currently and fascinatingly reading.
An odd Advent Calendar, of sorts.
In the same chapter from yesterday, “Thou Shalt Not Take All of This Too Literally,” Fugelsang examines the fallacy of folks who want to take the Bible (or any “holy” book) as God-breathed, literal instructions on how to live:
“Faith does not require literalism; many Christians [and non-Christians] find profound meaning in the Bible without taking every word as fact. As author and theologian Keith Giles reminds us, ‘Many things are Biblical, like genocide, patriarchy, slavery, polygamy. When I say these things are Biblical, I mean that people have in the past-and even today-used the Bible to justify all of those things. So, yes, those things are Biblical. But none of those things are Christlike.’”
“’And that’s the point. We’re called to follow Christ, not the Bible. In fact, please understand this: the Bible does not tell us to follow the Bible. The Bible tells us to follow Christ’” p. 77
Fugelsang continues;
“The Bible often uses figurative language to express truth. Jesus described himself as the ‘bread of life’ in John 6:35, but it’s not interpreted literally. The man was a poet; he wasn’t actually made of flour and yeast.” p.72
The author then quotes one of today’s most intelligent and insightful clergy, Pastor John Pavlovitz.
“The people who most stridently contend they believe in a literal application of the Bible have simply not read the majority of it. They have been selectively armed with the verses that seem to reflect their prejudices, confirm their theology, ratify their politics, and echo the story they believe about God. The moment you give them a verse or a section that confronts their worldview, you take the pressure off of yourself by having them argue with God and not you?” p. 75
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My understanding of today’s post: What’s most important in any faith’s “book” or any person’s “core belief” is the Love it directs us toward. The kindness, the compassion, the inclusion, the joy. Not the dogma and sense of exclusive superiority.
Marveling this 15th Day of Advent, remembering our FASCINATING few hours last week at Philadelphia’s uniquely beautiful Barnes Foundation.
Have you heard of this incredible art museum? I hadn’t.
“Philadelphia art collector Albert C. Barnes (1872–1951) chartered the Barnes in 1922 to teach people from all walks of life how to look at art. Over three decades, he collected some of the world’s most important impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern paintings, including works by Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso. He displayed them alongside African masks, native American jewelry, Greek antiquities, and decorative metalwork.” Barnesfoundation.org
I’ve never seen a museum like this!
The exhibition rooms are arranged in what is referred to as “ensembles,” mixing paintings with decorative objects like door hinges and metalwork to create visual dialogues across cultures and time periods. There are no explanatory notes beside each piece. Barnes did not want to tell the observer what to think about the art. (Today you can download an app which will give you info, if you choose to do so.)
Vincent van Gogh’s The Smoker (Le Fumeur)
After a bit, HR and I went our separate ways exploring and discovering.
Then I turned a corner and … saw my … my … Joy.
Wait, no, not Robert.
The colorful painting to the right of HR’s bald and shining pate.
I walked quickly past the interfering, albeit smooth, head and stood mesmerized in front of the painting which had so captured my consciousness.
The blue, or blues, drew me closer and had me standing, at peace, at calm.
The over-plenty of fruit spread across the table reminded me that my table never lacks bounty.
The painting shouted loudly that diversity of color, of shape, of direction and intent is a good thing. That colorful difference should be celebrated and displayed. Should be framed as masterful.
I stood entranced by art’s aim.
And I hope that Matisse somehow sensed, back in the warm summer of 1907 when he completed this scrumptious still life, that he was painting it specifically for an old fellow in the cold of 2025.
“This painting belongs to a remarkable group of still lifes made between 1906 and 1908 in which Matisse explores arabesques—designs of intertwined, flowing lines that function to move the viewer’s eye around the canvas. Matisse had been studying the works of Cézanne, who had died in 1906, and Cézanne’s influence can be seen in the tension here between two and three dimensions. To create the illusion of depth, Matisse constructs a series of horizontals and verticals that recede like a staircase.” Barnes Foundation
NealEnJoy 