Armchair Travel
Thursday, April 23, 2009
  The Face of Jesus


Rev. Dr. Richard Killough of the Sunderland Congregational Church told an interesting story in a sermon he gave last fall about forgiveness. It came to mind recently for reasons I'd rather not go into.
Leonardo da Vinci, the story goes, was painting the Last Supper, and he wanted to settle an old score with some guy by using the guy's face for the face of Judas. Let's face it, that's pretty funny.
But then when Leonardo came to paint the face of Jesus -- a rather important feature of the painting -- he couldn't get it right. He tried and tried -- and he was Leonardo da Vinci -- but he couldn't get it right.
It wasn't until he changed the face of Judas that he was able to paint the face of Jesus. And by all accounts he did a pretty good job.
I think this shows how nursing a personal beef impairs your creative abilities. It silences your child/genius and stifles joy. Most of the smart people I've read say to forgive everything, short of being a sap.
I think nursing a legitimate beef is something different; I don't think it eats you up in the same way; tho where the line is I'm sure I cannot say. I guess it would involve justice and other principles larger than one's own personal beefs, but that's as far as I'm willing to go without a license to preachify.
 
Comments:
Hi Steve, We all have things we need to forgive....and for which we should receive forgiveness. This has always been difficult for me, too, but extremely liberating.......
 
Your parents harmed you. It is not a matter of forgive, or beef for that matter. Your parents dynamic, their cruel, obsessive, insane, queer perversity on both sides... harmed you. Killed you. It happened in Dedham. The child within died. Do you remember flipping out so young? I do. The child within went insane. Your behavior became super hyper, your hands shook. The child died before he was five. Don't you remember the incident? The Lost Boy then came. The Lost Boy remained many years. He was sent to Groton, where it was colder then his mothers cold, cruel, dry womb of daggers. Ruined chances, whether creative or not were then made by you of barf, ugliness, hatred, garbage, ugly coffee mugs, fecal droppings,camel cigs,excrements for joy. A killed child within spends his life showing parents how horribly ugly his world is. First by visits, etiquette, little visits the pretend care for the alzhimer victim. Dumping and saving became the same. You did get to breathe...regardless. You got hell out of life and for a life. You did get to spread their sin. Sin meaning 'ignorance' and you did not get to outgrow it. You are stuck. You can "become" momentarily, if it is for heaven's sake. You required heaven, angels, women who were pure love and with whom you could not drive insane. What you could not move, lost boy, because solid and suddenly, the illusions of what is, instead of your creative death, began.
Nothing to forgive there. Just to get away from. Still, you spilled your bad toxic wasteful anger on others always. Always. What's next? It is pretty funny how you want an image all of a sudden. Do you look good?
 
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Literary gadfly Stephen Hartshorne writes about books that he finds at flea markets and rummage sales.

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Stephen Hartshorne worked in newspapers and magazines around New England for many years and served as Information Officer in the New Hampshire Senate under Senate President Vesta Roy. He worked as a material handler for nine years at the Yankee Candle Company until the company was taken over by corporate weasels. He is currently the associate editor of GoNOMAD.com, an alternative travel website, which gives him the opportunity to correspond with writers and photographers all over the world. He lives in Sunderland, Massachusetts, with his daughter Sarah, a student at Drew University, and their cat, Dwight D. Eisenmeower. This blog is dedicated to his mom, who made him bookish.

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