Personal Jesus

I thought that this was interesting. I saw a story on TV how this particular framed print was in dispute as it was in a public school in the middle of the US somewhere. It had been there since 1948, under Eisenhower. I recognized it right away as a Jesus that my mother had. I can't remember where. She had a few religious artifacts. 

    Look at this painting. I think it's really interesting how Jesus is depicted. It would make a really great PHD dissertation, the evolution of a pictorial Christ from the beginning to modern day. I take it that the depiction would have to do with the people that it was appealing to. 

I think my mother found this type of image comforting. I am hoping my sister can remember where my Mother had this picture in the house.

In the hallway, outside of her bedroom, but right in view to her when she lay in bed, she had a gaudy gold lozenge...a shiny oval Christ with sunbeams coming from his head, as I can remember. I have no idea where this came from. 

One night my father and I got into a big argument. I think that I came home past curfew one night when I was in high school or college. This set him off like nothing else. One night I came home and he had a rifle ready to threaten whoever brought me home. Any boy I dated knew that it would not be wise to walk me to the door late at night.

So we got into a screaming match probably because he was attempting to ground me for the rest of my life...or threatening me with something odious. 

He got so angry, he punch out at the wall and hit the lozenge. It shattered into a million plaster pieces. 

I feel guilty to this day.

For some reason, these confrontations always happened in the hallway. Over several years, he had punched holes in the wall. My mother would dutifully find an appropriate sided framed piece of art to hang over it until my father fixed it. ( usually prints from a magazine of little birds on white, perched happily on branches)  I can imagine he was cursing me the entire time he had to re plaster and paint the wall, reliving the entire event.

In Vermont, my mother had a gaudy ceramic stature of Christ on the cross with Mary Magdalene ( ?) weeping at his feet. It was a very graphic but primitive piece. She used to keep it on the dresser in the big bedroom. When I started going to Vermont a lot, and they stopped going, I would hide that statue along with a lot of other crap ( including a rather nice Picasso face, from a magazine that she framed with no mat. It just floated in grey cardboard, with a green frame. I think Picasso might have appreciated that.) 

I would hide most of her treasures and the next time I would come up, that damned statue would be back out on the dresser. She wasn't even sleeping there any more, but she had to have these talismans to show God that she was on board, as if he was watching. 

These days, I don't have any religious touchstones...I take that back. I do have a few Buddha statues. I think they are comforting, in a way.