Beauty

After Sunday morning worship ended the Central MidWest District meeting, I played tourist until my evening flight.  It was rainy when I arrived on Friday, sunny and bright yesterday as I spent the entire day indoors, and rainy and cold again today.

Rob had told me to visit the City Museum, and someday I will, but in the little time I had left in St. Louis, I chose to visit the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) on the campus of the University of St. Louis, a Jesuit school, and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, the finest example of Byzantine architecture in North America.  Religion and Art, one can see where my priorities lie.  Art and religion, two paths to the same spirit.

MOCRA, which has a stated mission purpose of engaging in interfaith dialogue and understanding through contemporary art, was featuring a work by Miao Xiaochun.  Miao had taken Michelangelo’s painting of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel and digitized it, making a two-dimensional painting into a 3-dimensional experience.  In virtual space, the viewer can "walk around" the painting viewing it from different angles.  What's more, for every character depicted in the painting, Miao substituted a 3-d rendering of himself.  This may sound egotistical at first, but the finished effect is that he "experiences" every part of the masterpiece, and we do to as the viewer.  Thus, he is both the damned and the saved.  He is the angels who help lift us up, who drive us down into the pits, and who call for the resurrection on their trumpets.

 The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis was so beautiful that my poor pictures are more misleading than edifying.  Follow the link above to see some of its glory.  One of the descriptions in the museum stated that while Gothic architecture soars up, making the Divine remote, Byzantine architecture attempts to bring heavenly beauty to earth, making the Divine present.  Immanent.

I'm not a gardener.  But I aspire to be one.

Last Fall, under the rationalization that it would protect the plants underneath from the winter snow, I didn't rake up the dead leaves that fell on the flowerbeds, only the grass and sidewalk.  

A few unexpected flowers have popped up here and there in the Spring warmth, but for the most part my backyard still looks pretty barren.  This weekend it suddenly occurred to me that all that dark debris still sitting there might actually be preventing spring shoots from making it up to the surface.  So the first chance I got, which was this afternoon, I raked up the leaves from last Fall.

Lo and behold, tender pink peony shoots, so delicate looking.  I thought for sure they'd died of thirst last summer.

Elsewhere, more shoots.  These green.  I have no idea what they are but am eager to find out.

After breaking a leaf and sniffing, I discover that the tiny leaves where the peppermint used to be aren't weeds after all.

Even some of the Greek Oregano and French tarragon seem to have survived - by a sprig - both the winter and the even more brutal workmen.

And my chrysanthemums from too late last fall... some of them don't seem to have made it, but a few have green leaves popping up at their bases.

Amazing what a good exfoliation can uncover.

Happy St. Pattie's Day!

Green is in the air for more reasons than one.  Even tho the first day of spring does not begin until this Thursday, the earth doesn't seem to care about the calendar.

Every year I am amazed.  One moment it seems like nothing is stirring in the still cold, hard earth.  And the next moment it seems like new life is popping up all over the place.  

While taking out the trash this morning, I noticed crocuses popping their heads up.  I didn't even know they were there, having inherited them.  But they care not who "owns" the land.

Walking out the front steps, I walked by the day lilies that my housemate had planted, just the green shoots and leaves for now.

Walking to the metro, I saw tulips and daffodils in my neighbors' front yards.

On the metro train, the trees at Brookland station were starting to put out white blossoms.

Near my office in Dupont Circle are magnolia trees in full bloom, and cherry trees.

I swear, I saw none of this when I passed these same spaces on Friday.  Was I that unaware?  Or was the miracle so fast?  Both are equally plausible.

I am awed and made humble by life.  Life springing up in my yards where ever it decides, despite my plans, despite my pretenses of control.

It snowed all day in Boston.  By coming up a day early to meet with old friends, I missed flying in the storm.  Instead, I spent the day safe and warm indoors, sipping hot tea, catching up with Paul and Linda, and playing some very creative bowling and baseball with Jonathan.  Poor Paul spent a few hours shoveling, while I enjoyed watching the huge fat flakes float down and marveled at the muffled silence of all but the scrape of steel on cement.  The sky was white and bright.

In the evening, they were kind enough to drive me to the hotel I would be staying at during the retreat - the Union Club.  The night was dark, the sky was clear, and the air was bitter cold - like a real winter night, not like the noncommittal winter we'd had so far in DC.  Amazing how even unpleasant things like a biting wind can be pleasant.

Looking out my bedroom window onto the cemetery of Kings Chapel, the snow-frosted tombstones stood out in the moonlight.  So cold.  So old.  So terribly beautiful.  I feel the spark within me burn bright.  I feel... alive.