Or he should be, at least metaphorically, after watching this wonderful music video for Jonathan Coulton's Mandelbrot Set. The creators of the video are teens from Sobriety High, a school for kids recovering from substance abuse, and their work provides yet another illustration of the link that many people for millennia have found between mathematics and higher meaning.
Speaking of which . . . stay tuned!
January 2007 Archives
Click through for an explanation. The image is a crisp visual representation of the emanation of differentiated complex belief systems from relatively simple generative patterns.
Click here for a moving, must-read story from writer Mark Evanier on his ER encounter with a battered woman and evangelist.
Pictured above: a caduceus tattoo.
(The title of the photo above: "I ain't got no bling," by Malik M.L. Williams.)
A Flickr meme last year had people posting pictures expressing the theme of the seven deadly sins. Here is photographer Williams' self-portrait and accompanying meditation:
I'm not trying to own the world.
Throughout this week, though, i noticed that i unconsciously left certain of the sins to the end: those that deal with acquisitiveness (envy, lust, greed). I have to wonder if there's some significance there. I also want to note that i've used this week's "Seven Deadly Sins" mini-challenge to focus on the better angels of my nature.
These are not my sins, not because i'm not capable of them or because i don't sometimes slip into them, but because i don't claim them. I don't let them rule me. I choose more for myself.
In 1973, psychologist Karl Menninger (of Menninger Clinic fame) wrote the bestselling Whatever Became of Sin?
Well, now we know: it branched off into accessories.
Pictured below: "The Temptress," from the Sinful Jewelry line designed by Delia Munoz.
At the Paris couture shows this week, Jean Paul Gaultier inspired the fashion world with his faith-based designs. Above, "British model Erin O'Connor appeared in a long gown, printed like stained glass windows in a church, with a fabric "corsage" of a naked baby boy perched on her left shoulder."
Luke 9:58: "And Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air, nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
First day of my spring semester entrepreneurship class means no time to post. And to mark today's momentary stoppage, here's a picture of someone getting arrested at a religious store.
Haven't been able to stop thinking about a series of articles I've been reading since first tipped off to the phenomenon on Jennifer Emick's site. The subject: Jesucristo Hombre, a man who claims to be the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Why is he on my mind?
Well, because I believe him, and I'm moving to Miami to live near my new Master.
Nahhhhhh, just kidding. The real Jesus wouldn't be caught dead with such a goofy photo portrait on His website. It's Wayne Newton meets the Amazing Kreskin, and that's way more Vegas than any faith can bear.
No, what makes JcH interesting is his open embrace of entrepreneurial self-enrichment--as Ms. Emick aptly puts it, "Jesus is back with bling." Flashy jewelry, expensive watches . . . what struck me upon reading the description of his ministry & a lengthy interview was how much JcH reminds me of Father Divine, an earlier professed re-incarnation of Christ who emerged out of a mainstreaming entrepreneurial minority group--for Father Divine, African Americans; for JcH, the Latino community. (I heard a lot about FD from one of my mentors, C. Eric Lincoln, and actually lived for a time near Mother Divine's place in Philadelphia.)
One could make similar connections to the emergence of messianic figures among upwardly mobile communities in the early & late nineteenth century. It's as if the emergence of an upwardly mobile personal savior is endemic to the disintegration of class and race barriers in the U.S.
For centuries spiritual meditation has been a leading path to inner peace. Now that we know meditation releases certain chemicals that can induce calm, why not go straight to the source?
Pictured left: a pendant with the molecular structure of seratonin, accompanied by dopamine earrings.
An Ek Ong Kar pendant inspired by the opening mantra of a Kundalini yoga class. Here's an explanation from KundalinaYoga.org:
EK ONG KAR, SAT NAM, SIRI WHA (HE) GURU
is the Adi Shakti Mantra, and it is very powerful for awakening Kundalini and suspending the mind in bliss. Ek means "One, the essence of all", Ong is the primal vibration from which all creativity flows, Kar is "creation", Sat "truth", Nam "name" Siri "great", Wha "ecstasy," and Guru is "wisdom". Taken together it means, "There is one Creator whose name is Truth. Great is the ecstasy of that Supreme Wisdom"!
The description of this Flickr photo is dubious about the Buddhist provenance of the swastika tattoo pictured here. The uploader would have a better argument if the swastika actually faced the same way as the Nazi swastika.
For a number of interesting photos from swastika history, check out the Wikipedia entry.
As Germany seeks to extend the ban on Nazi symbols across the E.U. . . .
"Hindu groups are campaigning against a German effort to ban the swastika across Europe.
Hindus from Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy are protesting to national governments and the European Union over the German move, announced last week.
Germany took over the rotating E.U. presidency this month and seeks to ban the display of Nazi symbols, as well as Holocaust denial, in all 27 European Union countries.
“The swastika has been around for 5,000 years as a symbol of peace. This is exactly the opposite of how it was used by Hitler,” Ramesh Kallidai of the Hindu Forum of Britain told Reuters.
“It is almost like saying that the Ku Klux Klan used burning crosses to terrorize black men, so therefore let us ban the cross. How does that sound to you?”
In Hindu tradition, the swastika is a sacred symbol of peace."
--Global Jewish News
A rearview mirror enneagram.
And friend.
An evil eye pendant from evil-eyes.com. It's a family-run business in Texas, where there's plenty of need for this sort of thing.
"An amulet blessed by a buddhist priest. It was given to me by my mother when the family left for china.
I was born in the year of the ox in the lunar calender, hence the picture of it. On the reverse is a representation of the goddess Guan Ying.
The chinese characters can be translated into 'safe and sound for life.' The swastikas are a buddhist symbol and have nothing to do with Nazism.
I'm not religious, but I keep it in my wallet anyway. "
This tattoo is taken from the st. 119 of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The woman who posted this describes it as "My Creed." Her translation is below; click here for more.
"Don't remember the last day,
Don't cry for the future,
In the past and in the future don't believe,
Live today and don't lose in the wind your life."
"today a very old indian cab driver with a long white beard sang me hindu love songs from the 1950's and translated each line into english for the duration of our 110 block ride. he then gave me a quarter "for luck" and these two bracelets, and made me promise to be "one of his brides."
got to love new york."
and destroying obstacles. A good idea for the day.
A piece of religious folk art: Jesus Christ crucified in a bottle. Constructed out of wood and paper.
Haven't seen this before. Guess the wristband would be red?
Where's this poor soul going? Well, my personal vision of hell is an eternity of paperwork, and this week, I'm pretty close to livin' it--hence the light posting. But as I took a free minute to pull together some posts for next week I came across the following video of the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan buying jewelry on Christmas Eve.
The source?
The store's security cam. Isn't there an implicit social contract that we let these things proliferate with the understanding that their owners won't release the film unless there's a crime or some illicit hanky panky?
Just as some modernist theologians posited that the afterlife is a metaphor for one's state of being while alive, seeing this footage reminds me of Jack Chick's iconic cartoon tract This Was Your Life, in which Jesus plays back your whole existence on Judgment Day. It's God's Unfunniest Home Videos, except it's our world now.
Adorned with a crucifix, of course.
"My original idea was to have the Cross intertwine within the Star of David, but no jeweler would make this pendant, let alone with such intricate workmanship. I finally found a jeweler who was willing to make it in this style."
Ancient Egyptian gods are tricky things. First there's the matter of the spelling--the transliterated hieroglyphic for the goddess depicted in this approximately three-thousand-year-old amulet is variably rendered in English as "Nwt", "Nuit," "Newit" or "Nut." Nut was the Egyptian sky goddess, who gave birth to the stars and the morning sun.
There is also another common variation: the image of the deity itself. In Nut's case, she could be a woman, a cow, or, as here, a sow--all conveying an image of fecundity. Or perhaps something more sinister:
It is not surprising that, as mother of the stars, she should have taken the form of a great sow, for the female pig’s habit of eating her own piglets must have been well known.
Click through for a wonderful array of Lego gods and goddesses. Pictured above: Aztec deities. "From left to right, Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl, Xipe-Totec, Mayahuel, Mictlantecuhtli, and Huitzilopochtli."
"Why be beautiful when you can be blasphemous?" That's the question asked by Miss B of the band My Ruin, and she backs this sentiment with her cutting-edge line of clothing called Blasphemous Girl Designs. Above: a fan video featuring her work. Below, Miss B's design philosophy:
I have spent many hours CREATING shirts and other pieces of clothing for the IMMACULATE CHURCH of MY RUIN MERCH. The place where I go to PRAY FOR ROCK and repent MY SINS. For some women dressing is akin to personal SALVATION. For me it's all about the SANCTUARY. My RELIGION is RELATIONSHIPS. I do not go to CHURCH and I am not sure if I believe in GOD, but I do find his image comforting. I also find it kind of disturbing. It's my opinion that JESUS was the first ROCKSTAR. Everyone else is just an IMITATION OF CHRIST!
Designed by the photographer.
Glitzy dollar sign rings; a large gold dollar pendant. For most Christians, this would be just one sign of our culture's soulless materialism--as exemplified by this pastor's podcast on "Being a Christian in This Age of Bling."
But be not deceived--this isn't an outtake from a remake of Pretty Fly for a White Guy. It's actually a photo from a gathering of Soulinthecity London, a Christian social enterprise endorsed by Prime Minister Tony Blair. In many ways it is a hybrid of evangelical faith with the liberal social gospel, as public service itself becomes an act of worship. In this light, the bling pictured here becomes ironic commentary, a subversive joke that one might even call redemptive.