#not even a religious person but this grotto is one of my favorite places to visit

[varioussandsandsaints]

I wanted to make a Grotto Aesthetic Moodboard for the Sand Siblings. I don't know, I just like the idea of the Sand Village having their own type of grotto. Made two different Moodboards with some different pictures, cause why not?

Grotto Pictures(by me) were taken at the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa. Such a cool place to visit!

[ceterisparibus116]

Daredevil scenes / plot points you would have done differently? (I get a suspicion a lot of them have to do with the law stuff, Frank Castle's trial especially. 😉 )

Aaaaa I love this question! Warning: VERY long response:

DEFINITELY the Frank Castle trial. Man, it could’ve been SO GOOD. I have a lot of issues with it, obviously, but the main one is that Matt treating Frank as a hostile witness could’ve been amazing (character-driven, emotionally-charged, also at times hilarious), and we were ROBBED.

 I also wish Matt could’ve been involved in more trial prep. The show makes it seem almost like Matt’s skill is limited to courtroom antics, but charisma and the ability to think on your feet in the courtroom mean next to nothing if you haven’t laid a foundation with good legal research and legal writing. I would’ve loved it if the legal plotlines showed us more of that. Like, you know Matt and Karen’s date night in S2 where she helps him come up with witness questions? I would’ve loved it if: a) they’d gotten, like, ANY part of that scene correct from a legal standpoint, and b) if we could’ve gotten MORE. I know that kind of thing might seem boring, but I don’t think it would be. You can really show off characters’ personalities in that kind of environment, and then the audience gets the reward of seeing that hard work pay off at trial.

 Speaking of, I know we’ve talked before about S3 splitting everyone up. I still think that could’ve maybe been worth it if we’d gotten a S4 where we could see how everyone learned from how disastrous the S3 isolation was, but without S4, everyone’s isolation in S3 is really unfortunate. I would’ve loved to see Nelson, Murdock, and Page working together for at least half of the season, instead of just the last 3-ish episodes. It would’ve been fascinating to watch, since Matt would still not be in a great headspace, and Karen would still be hurt, and Foggy would be just Trying To Deal with his idiot best friends. (But since we don’t have that, at least we have my S3 canon-divergent retelling thing: Take A Deep Breath – shameless plug.)

 I also would’ve generally kept the stakes lower in S2 and S3. I think you agree with me that both seasons would’ve been more powerful if we’d had more lower-level villains. But one of my favorite things about S1 is that we get to know the people who are at stake. Unlike in the Avengers where it’s just “the world” or “New York” or something, S1 showed us a little boy who wanted to go back to his dad, and Elena, and that one juror who was being exploited, and Melvin, and even a bad guy like Vladimir, and they’re ALL sympathetic. We really understand who Matt’s fighting for, but with the exception of Grotto, Jasper Evans, and Julie Barnes, I don’t feel like we really get that in S2 and S3.

 Related: our S2 ninjas needed a clearer motivation. (That goes for Defenders, too.) Imo, they needed personal stakes. Fisk’s mission to clean up Hell’s Kitchen was personal. Frank’s mission to take out bad guys was personal. Everything about Elektra was personal. Dex’s desperate attempt to find a place for himself and find people who care about him was VERY personal. But the Hand? Not personal at all.

 With Elektra…I’m torn. Part of me really wishes Matt could’ve told her no and maintained his boundaries all along, because a) I hate love-triangle-type drama and drama that could be resolved if people just stopped keeping secrets, and b) it would’ve been so refreshing to see the femme fatal trope subverted, and c) it would’ve given Elektra more agency. That being said…that might be veering too far away from comics canon. Matt is canonically a disaster with relationships, and he and Elektra have this whole…epic…magnetic…thing. I personally would argue that the show isn’t beholden to the canon in this specific way, but I can see how people would be upset if Matt and Elektra hadn’t turned out the way they did in S2.

 I would’ve liked Marci to have a smidge more character development. She was so sweet and supportive in S3and I don’t…quite…know where that came from? Oh, well.

 Speaking of character development: I wish Matt and Foggy could’ve had some real conversations. Aside from when Foggy found Matt at the gym in S1 and they talked about moving forward, I don’t feel like they had deep conversations that weren’t arguments. Matt’s S3 apology is good, but I would’ve loved to see Foggy apologize for how he contributed to the problems in their friendship. I also wish we could’ve seen Foggy explicitly thank Matt for, y’know…SAVING HIS LIFE.

 As for Karen, I wish her revelation scene to Matt had been more about HER. It says a lot about how selfless she is that she used her own pain to try to convince Matt not to kill Fisk. But even though I know Matt’s super depressed and everything, I would’ve loved to see him put his own angsty issues aside for a sec and just be there for his friend and the woman he loves. Even the fact that she is the one who crosses the room to be close to him is telling; he should’ve gone over to her when she started crying and been there for her.

 Although if I’m talking about Matt’s romantic relationships, I wouldn’t have minded if the show went a Clairedevil route. Although that would require A LOT. I do wish, if I’m being really fanciful, that we could’ve seen Claire in S3. Or, at minimum, seen Matt and Claire interact in Defenders.

 FATHER LANTOM TELLING MATT THAT GUILT IS A SIGN THAT HIS WORK IS NOT DONE. I cannot with that scene. I love Father Lantom, but that? Really? I mean, I get it. That’s a common way that Catholic doctrine is interpreted, and it’s what Matt basically wants to hear anyway, but it is SUCH a dangerous thing to tell Matt (and I feel like Father Lantom should’ve known that???) and it’s also, as I understand it, not even the technically correct Catholic interpretation of guilt. Like, that’s literally not what guilt is or how it’s supposed to work. (Although who knows. I’m not Catholic, and as I understand it, Catholics themselves vary a lot in their interpretations of doctrine. So idk.) If I were writing that scene, I would definitely not have written Father Lantom to say that.

 On the religious theme, I wish S3 had circled back to Matt’s original objections related to the book of Job. He gets quite a few things wrong in his recap, and I’m not sure if Maggie didn’t correct him because she didn’t know better, or because she didn’t think a Biblical literacy lecture was what he needed at the moment, OR because the writers couldn’t be bothered to read the book. (In fairness…it’s a long and complicated book. But they couldn’t have been bothered to read a commentary on it?) I wish S3 had not stopped at giving Matt an abstract tapestry analogy to heal his faith when it also should’ve addressed his specific complaints.

I wish we’d had more time to see Matt and Maggie repair their relationship, or start to. And I wish she’d hugged him at Literally Any Point.

I wish the whole Matt-hallucinating thing had been clearer. Was he actually hallucinating? Or was that just his internal monologue manifested through other characters? If he was hallucinating, did he just...stop? Is he not freaked out about that? What was going on????

Oh, and if only they could’ve gotten Dex’s psychological diagnosis right.

 Other than that, there are a couple scenes that I feel like drag on way too long (S3 especially has an odd amount of monologues that generally strike me as OOC anyway—except with Fisk; he’s just Like That) but I don’t want to go into all of them. It would be hypocritical, given how long this reply is. :P

 So yeah, I think I’ll stop there, although I’m sure there’s more, haha. Thank you again for the ask and the excuse to ramble about Daredevil! I look forward to your thoughts as well.

[catholicliving]

An Essay on “Practical Catholicism”

So a few weeks ago, two of my coworkers were talking about different religions and how people practice their respective faiths. I didn’t really take part in the conversation, but simply listened in as it was near my desk, and I couldn’t help but hear. One of them made a remark to this effect: “I don’t see why people need to go to a special building to worship God. I can worship him in my house, or out in nature, or anywhere. I don’t need a special building for that.”

And, to a certain degree, she’s right. We can worship God anywhere. In fact, Jesus tells us that we should go to our inner rooms and pray to our Father in secret, and our Father who sees what is secret will repay us.

There is certainly merit to private prayer, do not get me wrong. We should all be comfortable with private meditation whether at home or on the go, and we don’t need a “worship space” – a church, a chapel, a grotto, or whatever – to pray.

All that being said, that doesn’t take away from the fact that we DO need to be comfortable with communal worship as well. As one of my favorite Christian musical artists Ron Kenoly says, “Learn how to worship with the person standing next to you / Because when we get to Heaven, that’s what we’re gonna do.”

We need to have and do both.

But, let’s not overlook why so many people do go to church, and have gone to a central place of worship for hundreds of generations: the practical one – it’s a community center.

Think back to the 1800s, and those rural communities out in Farmland, USA (or any country, really). Your neighbors were sometimes several miles away, and, without cars, that was easily a half-day’s journey just to go to your friend’s house for a chat, grab a thing of sugar and then head back home. It was much easier for everyone to gather at the church, a central location, on Sunday and hear the latest news — that couple just had their first baby; so-and-so is on their deathbed; Mr. Smith fell and broke his leg and is on bedrest for several weeks. But, because these were also people of Faith, that meant that they could take action on anything that they felt needed to be done. Bring the new parents some food; help Mr. Smith’s family with their chores and other tasks; offer so-and-so’s family words of consolation, etc.

Even today, politicians realize that if you want to get the African-American communities involved, you go to their churches. You talk to the pastor, or the youth minister or whomever, because if they can get their congregation involved, your collective goals will be accomplished very quickly. This can be said for other communities, too, don’t get me wrong; but the African-American community is well-known for seeing the church as a gathering place for everyone to come together and plan how to get things done. (See: the Civil Rights movement.)

And as I thought of all these things later, after my coworkers’ conversation was long over, I began to realize how many aspects of our Faith hold not only a spiritual reason, but a practical one as well.

For instance: stained glass windows. Yes, they’re pretty. Yes, they should raise our thoughts to God and His work throughout salvation history. But, really, the reason they were first used in churches was when the majority of church-goers were illiterate, and the church leaders (priests, religious, etc.) needed a way to instruct both children and adults about the stories of the Faith. Thus, stained glass windows as a visual aid for whatever important Biblical figure or story you needed to teach people about.

Candles seem so archaic and ritualistic now, but up until electricity was invented, that was the only way to see. Yes, they also serve a liturgical and spiritual purpose; but, honestly, they were there to help the priest read the Missal and everyone else to see what was going on. If your church had a lot of windows and natural light, great! But, on those days when it was dark, or cloudy, or the church couldn’t afford windows… candles were the only way to see things.

(EDIT: When first writing this essay, I forgot to add the very important example below, on confession. I will also mark where the new content ends and the old content begins, just for clarification.)

I’ve been thinking about this subject for a while, and I remember mulling it over again after I saw this reblog on my “When you have to confess a really embarrassing sin to your favorite priest” post 

This is one thing I envy Catholics for. I know I can lay my sins directly before God in private confession and prayer, but I feel like I would get more closure from confessing my transgressions in person to someone like a priest. It might feel more real, more permanent, than whispering a prayer by myself, and wondering if I was sincere enough. I mean, it is so much scarier to go to a real person and confess my shame out loud! But I would be able to trust them, and they would remind me of God’s forgiveness, and I would feel that my extra effort proved my repentance to be sincere. And I know God’s forgiveness depends fully on Jesus’s sacrifice and not on the sincerity of my plea for it, but the mental shame game is still a toughie.

This is something I’ve always appreciated about confession. Several times I’ve wanted to just confess my sins to God and just hope in His Mercy and not have to bring them to confession, because I just felt so embarrassed about them. Why can’t I just tell God I’m sorry? Why do I have to go to a priest? Can’t I just ~assume~ that He’s forgiven me and move on?

But, I cannot tell you the relief I feel every time I do take those sins to confession and hear the words, “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Go in peace.” I know, with 100 percent certainty, that I am forgiven.

And, even more practically speaking, in hindsight, it’s so helpful to bring those sins to the priest who can give you counsel and advice on how to avoid giving into those temptations in the future. If you’re Catholic, I’m sure you understand how many little tidbits from confession you end up remembering. Whether you carry them out or not is another matter, but they stick with you. If you’re not Catholic, I sincerely ask you to investigate what I mean – ask Catholics you know about confession and how it helps them; talk to a priest; etc. Granted, the priest doesn’t always give you advice or counsel, but when he does, it’s almost always something you needed to hear, whether you knew it already or not. He can tell you not to beat yourself up over your weaknesses, more practical steps on avoiding certain sins, or ways you can beef up your prayer life. It’s like spiritual direction with a bit of therapy thrown in there.

(EDIT: Old content begins here.)

One of my favorite parts of the liturgy that falls into this category is when the priest washes his hands after receiving the gifts (bread, wine, monetary donations) from the congregation. He says a prayer, “Lord, wash me of my iniquities and cleanse me of my sin,” and has the server pour a bit of water on his hands. The gesture is more for a spiritual purpose now than a practical one… But it didn’t start out that way. In the days of the Early Church, the priest did this to wash off all the gunk he got from touching the livestock, produce and other things that people donated during the Offertory. Now, of course, its practical purpose is gone, but that history is still there.

Many of the things that we do, if traced back enough, can also be seen from a practical perspective, and not just a spiritual one. For instance, the relics of the saints that every church has in its altar is a reminder that many in the Early Church celebrated Mass in the crypts beneath Rome, because that was — practically speaking — the safest place to do it. It was secret, out of the public way, and you could only really find it if you knew about it. Similarly, the ichthus, or the “Jesus fish symbol” as we always called it when we were kids, was a way for Christians to identify each other when their religion was forbidden. One person would trace the symbol with their foot or their stick in the sand or the dirt, to see if the other person would recognize it. If so, they were a fellow Christian. If not, you could just smudge it out or claim you had restless leg syndrome or something and it wasn’t anything.

Practically speaking, we have a Pope, because we need a “lead guy” whenever something goes wrong or we need to make a decision. Yes, he makes those decisions in union with a council of bishops, so it’s not just him acting by himself. But, at the end of the day, the Pope can always be regarded as The Official Spokesman® for the Catholic Church. If some Catholics do something that’s bad, the Pope can be the one to say, “Yeah, no, that’s seriously not what we believe. Don’t listen to them if they tell you that we do.”

Our society is starting to see this a lot right now among the Muslim community. We have some Muslims in the Middle East who are killing Christians and other non-Muslims, and claiming jihad, and doing all sorts of violent things — all in the name of Islam; all claiming that their beliefs are justified in the Qu'ran. Yet, there are Muslims in America who believe Islam is a peaceful religion, that attacking people of other faiths is never justified, and that the other Muslims have taken the Qu'ran out of context. Who are we non-Muslims to believe? Is Islam peaceful or not?

Granted, even if there were The Official Spokesman® for the Islamic Faith, I doubt those conflicts and quarrels would go away. However, it would give us non-Muslims someone to look to and say, “S/he speaks for all the true Muslims and those who disagree are a splinter group.”

Even within the Catholic Church, there are plenty of “Catholic” politicians who are pro-choice, even though the Church has spoken out against abortion several times, and asked people not to approve of it in any way, especially politicians. Yet, there are groups within the Church who don’t listen to or follow these teachings, and do their own thing, yet still claim to be Catholic. Who are we to believe? Is Catholicism pro- or anti-abortion?

I don’t want to get too bogged down in the political dealings. The ultimate point was that we Catholics have someone to look to as a sort of final authority (on earth), a spokesman, and a guy who gets the deciding vote (if there were ever some kind of disagreement within the church about something) before proclaiming doctrine on Faith and Morals.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things that we do in the liturgy that are wholly spiritual in nature. Kneeling, for instance — there’s really no practical reason to kneel. We do it to show reverence for the King of Kings, who is present in the Blessed Sacrament.

I simply mean to say that so much of our faith, our prayers, our rituals, our liturgy, our structure of the Church involves what I would like to call “Practical Catholicism.”

We are hylomorphic beings after all. That means that we are both body and soul. Some Christian denominations say that humans are merely souls temporarily trapped inside meat bags. That our bodies are unimportant. Merely prisons from which we must free ourselves. And while our souls are certainly more important, that doesn’t mean that are our bodies are nothing. Our souls affect our bodies, and our bodies affect our souls.

There’s a reason that my spiritual director always encouraged people to drink coffee before trying to pray in the morning. There’s a reason why you’ll start feeling depressed if you’re inactive for too long. There’s a reason why if there are certain hormones in your system, you’ll probably have to fight harder against lustful thoughts and actions. We are both. Yes, our souls will go to Heaven (or Hell) when our bodies die, but at the End of Days, we are going to get our bodies back — New and Improved® bodies.

So, the next time you wonder why Catholics’ rosaries have five sets of 10 beads (it’s because we used to count on our fingers); or why the choir loft is usually above the congregation and at the back of the church (it’s so our voices and instruments can carry better); or why Hispanic Catholics only ever seem to use guitar / mariachi-type music at church (because guitars and trumpets are hand-held, portable instruments, making them perfect for processions, or minstreling through the town, and are generally cheaper than a piano or organ); or why we use only precious metals to contain the Eucharist (not only is it spiritually respectful, but precious metals typically last longer); or anything else about the Catholic Faith, I merely ask that you try to see not only the spiritually relevant reasons, but the practical ones as well.

Because, ultimately, whether you believe in God, whether you practice a faith, whether your Catholic or another Christian denomination… learning to cooperate and work with others to achieve a common goal is central to not only our society, but society in general.

Thus, if ever anyone asks you or complains about not needing a special building to worship God in… just say, “You know, we don’t just go to church for only spiritual reasons.”

[estacalavera]

‘Our Very Own Madonna’ from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly — Jean-Dominique Bauby

Joséphine was a collector: old perfume bottles, rustic canvases complete with cattle (singly or in herds), plates of make-believe food of the kind that substitute for menus in Tokyo restaurant windows.  In short, during her frequent travels she bought everything unspeakably kitsch she could lay her hands on.  In Lourdes, it was love at first sigh.  There she sat in the window of the fourth shop on the left, surrounded by a jumble of religious medals, Swiss cuckoo clocks, decorated cheese platters, and— apparently waiting just for Joséphine— an adorable stucco bust haloed with winking bulbs, like a Christmas tree decoration.

“There’s my Madonna!” Joséphine exulted.

“It’s my present,” I said at once, with no inkling of the exorbitant sum the shopkeepr would soon extort from me (alleging that it was one of a kind).  That evening, in our hotel room, we celebrated our acquisition, its flickering holy light bathing us and casting fantastic dancing shadows on the ceiling.  

“Joséphine, I think we’re going to have to split up when we get back to Paris.”

“Do you think I don’t realize that?”

“But Jo...”

She was asleep.  She had the gift of falling into instant slumber when a situation annoyed her.  She could take a vacation from life for five minutes or several hours.  For a while I watched the wall behind our pillows jump in and out of darkness.  What demon could have induced people to line a whole room with orange fabric?

Since Joséphine was still sleeping, I cautiously dressed and left to engage in one of my favorite pastimes: night walking.  It was my personal way of battling misfortune; just walking until I dropped.  Out on the street, Dutch youths guzzled beer from big mugs.  They had torn holes in garbage bags to make raincoats.  Stout bars blocked the way to the grotto, but at intervals I saw the glow of hundreds of guttering candles.  Much later, my wanderings brought me back to the street with souvenir stores.  In the fourth window, an identical, an identical Mary had taken the place of ours.  Then I turned back to the hotel; from very far away I saw the window of our room twinkling in the gloom.  I climbed the stairs, careful not to disturb the night watchman’s dreams.  Trail of the Snake sat on my pillow like a jewel in its setting.  “Well, well,” I murmured.  “Charles Sobraj!  I’d forgotten all about him.”

I recognized Joséphine’s writing.  A huge “I” was scrawled across page 168.  It was the start of a message that took up two whole chapters of the book and left them totally unreadable.

“I love you, you idiot.  Be kind to your poor Joséphine.”

Luckily I had read these pages already.

When I switched off the Holy Virgin, day was just breaking.

[italythings]

Caravaggio in  Rome

I am reminded almost instantly why the Catholic Church captured my imagination in Italy.  The brutality, ecstasy and the focus on the body smacks  you in the face everyplace you go.  If you are a child who wonders about what happens to bodies after they die, the potential for inhumanity within humans and the reasons why someone devotes themselves to a religion, Rome is the place where those ponderings grow even deeper.  In St Peter’s grottoes a freshly deceased Pope appears as though a sheer sheet of marble was laid over his corpse and then placed upon a slab, a vivid depiction of what lies in the tomb below.  In every church (and there are so many churches!) Jesus suffers freely and expressively.  On the sides of buildings, portraits of the Virgin look down upon us all with her quiet anguish.  As a child I was just impressed to be surrounded by so many dead bodies and so much human suffering but now after a day of touring Rome and looking upon countless masterpieces of religious art I am tired and emotionally drained.  A Raphael painting doesn’t move me at 6 in the evening like it did at 10 in the morning.  This religious art is bringing me down, man.  

What keeps my interest piqued though, is Michaelangelo Caravaggio.  Go to the Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria Del Popolo and gaze upon Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of St. Peter.  In it, Caravaggio does not depict the moment at the height of St. Peter’s suffering, hours into his crucifixion, but instead captures the exact moment that St. Peter beings to think, “oh shit…”  He is upside down but twisting his torso  into an almost upright position in an attempt to assess the situation.  Around him three strong men kneel, lift, pull and struggle to erect the cross to which he is nailed.  This is the kind of brutality that stunned me as a child and the kind of perfect-moment-captured that keeps me interested as an adult.  The subject-matter of the painting  would be almost mundane if the violence wasn’t so exceptional.  Three laymen laboring, performing their job that requires little more than brute force.  It is a very small, real moment in a very old and known story.

When I go to Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi to see three of Caravaggio’s masterpieces I am again struck  by that suspended moment in time in The Calling of Saint Matthew.  Levi, the tax-collector’s finger expresses so much ambiguity.  His other hand remains placed solidly upon a pile of coins while his expression reads, “Surely not me, you must mean him.”  You can read the movement in his finger as it turns from, “Me?! Or him?”  There may even be some confusion from Jesus’s companion St. Peter as he attempts to decipher Jesus’ desires.  Perhaps he wonders who they could possibly find in a tavern full of money-men, “Uhhh?  The one in the back there?”  The only person who seems to truly know what is happening is Matthew himself who is slumped on the table.  We know  the story so we know that he stands, follows Jesus and becomes an Apostle but that eventuality is not necessarily clear in this imagine as he hangs his head, no sign of bracing his body for its eventual rise.  Another, “Oh shit” moment.  A recurring and favorite moment it seems for Caravaggio.  The moment when the reality of what you are about to endure in the name of Jesus presses its entire weight upon your shoulders.

   The rest of Saint Matthew’s life is shown in two more Caravaggio pieces.  The second is The Inspiration of St. Matthew which shows an angel hovering over Matthew and enumerating his work while Matthew looks somewhat doubtful and a bit panicked, hurriedly writing down the angel’s words.  Another, “Oh shit” moment that is caught most vividly in Saint Matthews expression and the off balance stool upon which he is seated.  The third, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, is a bit harder to read and was apparently even a struggle for Caravaggio who drafted multiple compositions of the piece only to leave it and return to it again once The Calling  was completed.  It depicts the murder/martyrdom of Saint Matthew by a soldier acting on the orders of an Ethiopian King.  The confusion comes from Saint  Matthew’s hand, is he shielding himself from his assailant who towers over his body ready to strike?  It wasn’t until, like Caravaggio, I left the piece to admire The Calling  again and then returned that I realized Saint Matthew’s hand is actually extended to the offering hand of an angel who floats above the assassin's head, so close they may touch at any moment.  Saint Matthew is apparently the only one who is aware of this angel’s presence and Saint Matthew reaches for it as a gesture of acceptance, perhaps even welcoming, of the inevitable.  These paintings while exceptional in their own right, do not move me quite like The Calling and others agree as The Calling has been referred to as possibly the greatest painting of all time.  

As said before, after the first day of viewing religious art I was done.  I was ready for Roman ruins, salumerias, maybe even a movie.  Anything other than more fucking religious art.  The next morning though, while sitting in a sunny patch on the steps of the fountain that lies in front of the Pantheon my brother who was visiting Rome with me suggested we go check out the Caravaggios again.  “Yup.” Was my only response and we both rose and walked silently to visit Saint Matthew once more.  On our second visit they were tuning the church organ.  Slowly working through chords, one man played while the next declared, “vai” after every perfectly tuned note, allowing the organ player to move to the next string of notes.  My brother inserted a coin into the small machine next to the paintings that illuminated each canvas (they can’t charge you to enter the church but they WILL charge to provide the light so you can actually see these masterpieces).  The flood of intrigue, emotion and imagination all came back just as it did the day before.  I laughed at myself as I probed my deep enjoyment of these pieces transposed upon  my recent contempt for religious art and quickly realized two things. 1. These paintings are greater than what they depict.  The colors seem to glow from within and I can only describe the light in these paintings as a synthesis of our collective imaging of heavenly light, a kind of perpetual golden hour that for me is what makes a Caravaggio painting great.  And 2. These are not just religious depictions but freeze-frames of the human condition inflated.  Jesus does not personally retrieve us from a tavern (although god knows I could have used that assistance once or twice) but we have all faced a seemingly insurmountable responsibility or inevitability that has weighed down on us like a thousand pound stone.  Perhaps an angel has never listed our work off on its fingers over our head but flashes of inspiration and creativity have jolted us from our sleep or torn us away from our guilty marathoning of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, needing to be drawn or expressed immediately.  Caravaggio was depicting human experiences that were not limited to the Bible by using the church’s prosperity and appreciation of the arts to fund his expression.  It also can’t be denied that these Biblical stories are good stories, interesting subject matter and Caravaggio could express his experience of human suffering, panic, fear and occasionally triumph through them.

So yes, I have had about 6 years of religious art thrown at me in a period of 24 hours but that is not only part of what makes Rome so amazing but also is what makes it fun.  Sifting through the unbelievably, unimaginably, dauntingly long history to pick out something that speaks to you whether you are nine years old or thirty years old or I imagine ninety years old is a specific joy that is hard to achieve anywhere else.