Easter things I came across that you might appreciate
Kester Brewin’s new book After Magic.
This tweet:
Let us be very clear about this: God is not the one who demanded crucifixion. God is the one who was crucified. — Brian Zahnd
which led me to this really excellent article: How did Jesus understand his death?
Finally, Reverend Richard Coles’ surprising and poignant stations of the cross:
Station I: Jesus is condemned to death
Station II: Jesus takes up the cross
Station III: Jesus falls for the first time
Station IV: Jesus meets his mother
Station V: Simon of Cyrene is forced to carry the cross
Station VI: Veronica wipes the sweat from Jesus’ face
Station VII: Jesus falls for the second time
Station VIII: Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem
Station IX: Jesus falls a third time
Station X: Jesus is stripped of his garments
Station XI: Jesus is nailed to the cross
Station XII: Jesus dies on the Cross
Station XIII: Jesus is taken down from the Cross
Station XIV: Jesus is laid in the tomb
29 March 2013
tags: death,
jesus
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Maurice Sendak died today
I love what he says about illustrating:
An illustrator, in my own mind – and this is not a “truth” of any kind – is someone who so falls in love with writing that he wishes that he had written it, and the closest he can get to is illustrating it. And the next thing you learn, you have to find something unique in this book which perhaps even the author was not entirely aware of. And that’s what you hold on to, and that’s what you add to the pictures – a whole other story that you believe in, that you think is there. When you hide another story in the story, that’s the story that I am telling the children.
It may not be a ‘truth’, but it is certainly applicable, not just to illustrators, but to any creative work that involves communicating what other people have said or created.
Watch the whole video:
Thank you, Mr Sendak
8 May 2012
tags: books,
children,
death,
illustration,
stories
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Good with(out) God
It is not hard to be good without God. Lots of people are good without God. The tricky bit is being good without convenience. Or good without reward. Or good without the promise of nice feelings after. I think that is why Jesus is still so compelling to so many people. His cross-shaped goodness is something we aspire to in our best moments. It’s too bad that we (Christians, atheists and everybody else) so often fail to live up to that aspiration. When one of us actually does act like Jesus, it is so beautiful that it seems easier to explain it away or just kill them than to accept the goodness.
13 December 2011
tags: death,
humans,
jesus,
love
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This attitude
A thing I think is that the world needs is people like this, people who don’t need imaginary optimism in order to care, people who will love no matter the outcome simply because they are full of love.
The comic is by the amazing Sam Brown of Exploding Dog. I’m loving his crazy monster comics right now.
23 May 2011
tags: death,
illustration,
love
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Death is a farmer
Larry Shallenberger writes a really good blog. His post today was so good that I drew a picture for it — I draw pictures on my iPhone — and thought about how the Farmer o’ Death is a lot like The Powers in (what little I know about) Walter Wink’s ideas.
It’s a short post, and it starts like this:
Death is farmer who rises before dawn and eats the same plate of eggs and bacon
And drinks bitter coffee from the same ceramic mug that his son bought him when he was in the first grade, just before he joined the Army.
The farmer grabs his faded cap and ambles to the barn and resurrects his faithful tractor thinking about the weathered fence his wife has been begging him to paint
And that dripping faucet.
The farmer absently guides the blades to a field he does not…
Read the rest of Larry’s post.
9 March 2011
tags: blogging,
death,
stories
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