“You won’t believe this but we had some visitors from Europe two years ago – Christians, some sort of Protestants – who said they didn’t believe in the power of relics!”
The monk stroked his beard, wide-eyed with disbelief.
“No,” he continued. “I’m not joking. I had to take the Protestants aside and explain that we believe that St. Antony and all the fathers have not died, that they live with us, continually protecting us and looking after us. When they are needed – when we go to their graves and pray to their relics – they appear and sort out our problems.”
“Can the monks see them?”
“Who? Protestants?”
“No. These deceased fathers.”
“Abuna Yustus is always appearing,” said Fr. Dioscorus matter-of-factly. “In fact one of the fathers had a half-hour conversation with him the day before yesterday. And of course St. Antony makes fairly regular appearances – although he is very busy these days answering prayers all over the world. But even when we cannot see the departed fathers we can always feel them. And besides – there are many other indications that they are with us.”
Here are some more contemporary realist and classical realist artists whose work I like.
Christopher Stott, a man after my own luddite heart: wind-up clocks, rotary dial phones and manual typewriters.
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Odd Nerdrum, damn disturbing at times, but ... holy moley! When I can paint like this, I'll be done.
I know I've posted about him before but he's always worth coming back to. Very often, Nerdrum's paintings leave me in a profoundly perplexed state. They confuse and upset me
and I can't stop looking at them.
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Michael Naples. I mentioned once to Andrea that when I was younger, I couldn't understand the point of still life, but now I am interested in almost nothing else.
Whenever I look at the portfolio of an artist I always click over to the still life section first because it gives me the best idea of his ability and interests. She said that it is easy to make grand subjects look wonderful and if all artists ever did was portraits of famous people or heroic scenes from history, art would be very dull. "If you can make an onion look interesting, you've really got talent."
I'm not entirely sure what it is about still life that so grabs my attention. I know that I can't stand busyness, noise, kerfuffle. I hate going to Rome. I have hated big cities since I started living in them in my early 20s. I have an idea about heaven, that it is, above all, quiet.
Or maybe it's simpler than that. Still life painting always reminds me of painting in the dining room with grandma. We're really never so sophisticated as we would like to think, are we?
Benedict XV, the pope of peace, wrote about Jerome, who I think should be the patron saint of late-starting autodidacts. He describes my feelings about learning to draw quite precisely:
What a toil it was! How difficult I found it! How often I was on the point of giving it up in despair, and yet in my eagerness to learn took it up again! Myself can bear witness of this, and so, too, can those who had lived with me at the time. Yet I thank God for the fruit I won from that bitter seed.
The Greatest of Doctors teaches us also how to approach heretics and it is interesting to note that he says nothing whatever about "finding common ground".
"I have never spared heretics, and have always striven to regard the Church's enemies as my own."
"There is one point in which I cannot agree with you: you ask me to spare heretics - or, in other words - not to prove myself a Catholic."
Pope Benedict says that Catholics must follow Jerome's teaching and his example.
they must be ready to combat not only those who deny the existence of the Supernatural Order altogether, and are thus led to deny the existence of any divine revelation or inspiration, but those, too, who - through an itching desire for novelty - venture to interpret the sacred books as though they were of purely human origin; Those, too, who scoff at opinions held of old in the Church, or who, through contempt of its teaching office, either reck little of, or silently disregard, or at least obstinately endeavor to adapt to their own views, the Constitutions of the Apostolic See or the decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
Would that all Catholics would cling to St. Jerome's golden rule and obediently listen to their Mother's words, so as modestly to keep within the bounds marked out by the Fathers and ratified by the Church.
I’ve discovered this thing called “hardiness zones”. This part of Italy is close to the top, Zone 9, and nearly anything can be grown here and will do so more or less year round. Frosts are infrequent and rainfall is pretty good in the winter, though summer sun can be fierce.
Last year, however, we actually had snow (!) and my hibiscus had a dreadful temper tantrum over it, dropping most of its leaves and threatening to just hold its breath until it died. I’m afraid I am a terrible softie, because instead of speaking sternly to it, I took it inside, cut off the dead bits, patted its leaves and told it that it’s a good plant and not to die.
In response, it has grown back all its leaves and has been flowering gorgeously all summer. I’ve learned to defeat the aphids that were bothering it by raising the PH level of the soil. I do this by simply dumping the left over tea leaves onto the soil. Haven’t had any aphids since I started doing this.
I’m running out of room on the shelf that runs around the balcony so it’s time to start thinking of making more use of the rest of the space. First I think I’m going to have to get some of those hook things that let you hang the long planters off the railing.
But more interestingly, I thought I would go up. There is a patch of beautiful (this isn't the one on the train verge; I got it from the internet)
purply-blue Convolvulus sabatius growing on the verge of the train tracks and I thought I would go out with my trowel and a bucket and dig some up. I plan to get some long bamboo sticks and some twine and make a trellis and put the morning glory in a planter hanging on the railing and train it up to give some shade to the window on the east wall of the balcony, the window that is part of the bay window in the sitting room.
From the point of view of the sitting room, it is a west-facing window and it gets a lot of really ferocious sun in the afternoons that really heats up the room. There is no way to hang curtains directly over the window since it has been built with metal casements and no space on the wall to sink a screw for a bracket so I’ve come up with the brilliant idea of shading it with flowers from the outside. Ain’t I clever?
I have also found out that it is possible to grow wisteria in containers,
(which is good, since as you can see from this pic I took near the S. Marinella train station last April, it really does need containing.)
so I thought I would do one growing up the other side of the balcony. I expect that if I want it to flower, it will have to be in quite a deep pot to give it enough room for a good solid root system, so this one will have to go on the floor. I think I am going to donate my barbeque grill to friends, since the balcony is really too small to do barbequing. This will free up a big section of space for plants.
What I really want, and have admired for years that grows very well in this climate, is
Brugmansia, Angel’s Trumpet. I’ve seen all sorts of varieties around here and I’m sure I could find one to fit. The first time I saw them was many years ago in the Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver and I’ve been fascinated by them ever since. I never thought I would live in a place with a climate suitable to them, but here they are and they are truly amazing. They really look almost unearthly.
Of course, no balcony garden could be considered complete without a little pot of pansies.
I also have to get me some bright red geraniums, since I think it is mandatory for Italian balconies.
And I’ve saved the poppy seed heads that I had the first summer I was in the flat. I have sprinkled them over the soil in the pansy pot in what I hope is a good imitation of what happens in nature. The poppies in April and May are a main source of visual joy here, spreading rosily throughout the hay fields and all along the railroad tracks and on any bit of waste ground. I’ve found out that they do not last if you cut them, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Last summer, I was walking home from the train station and I saw growing by the side of the tracks this most amazing looking plant. I suppose here they are considered weeds, since I have never seen one in a garden store. But as soon as I spotted it, I knew it was an acanthus, and I had to have one.
I thought it would be fun to come back with a trowel and a bucket and grab it, but I never got round to it. I have regretted this, since the acanthus is so important to the Greco-Roman artistic inheritance, and it would be so cool to have one live, and maybe even paint it. As soon as you see one, you realise instantly that the Corinthian columns really do look just like that. They are also very handsome plants, “weeds” or not. And they attract bumblebees, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
The very next time I see one growing wild in an inconspicuous place, I will not hesitate. I’m told they grow all over Rome and are especially abundant on the Palatine, but I’m sure that the Roman park authorities would look askance at me appearing at the centre of ancient Roman world armed with a bucket and spade, even if they are weeds.
And of course, I have to have nasturtiums, which can be seeded in with all the other stuff to create a nice dense display and make the whole place look saturated with flowers.
Apart from these grandiose plans, everything on the balcony is doing quite well. They all seem to like the south-facing location and I’ve found that with containers, watering is not much of a problem.
I had an attack of white mealy bugs at the end of the season last year, and they carried off one or two things.
The thyme that I thought had succumbed to the nasty little beasts has sprung back wonderfully. I was just cutting back all the dead stuff in preparation for using the pot for something else when I saw little sprouts of green. I cut away everything else and carefully watered the green stuff, and voy-lah! Lovely lemon thyme again.
The mint has been very robust. I cut it back all the way to the nub when it starts showing signs of flowering; the dried leaves keep their fragrance very nicely and it goes especially well in iced tea. As soon as it is cut, it springs back even more mightily than before. Every morning, I go out onto the balcony to inspect the plants, and I always brush my hands over the mint. It reminds me powerfully (as scents do) of my grandma’s garden.
Grandpa always said he regretted having planted their fuzzy-leaved mint on the south slope of the property, since over the 30 years they lived there, the stuff spread over everything and with the periwinkle and king cup, was nearly impossible to control. But I was always happy to be sent out by Grandma to pick some to put in with the new potatoes for dinner. The smell of fresh mint leaves always makes me feel safe, secure and happy. Loved.
The local garden shop had a few nice things on sale, and I bought this lovely thing that I’d never heard of before, a Duranta. So many of the Zone 9 plants are unfamiliar it is like learning gardening all over again. Its leaves come in long pointed fronds that drape very elegantly over the edge of the pot, and its orchid-like flowers have a really lovely scent.
A friend gave me this last week and I have deposited it on the balcony, but I have no idea what it is. Anyone? It needs a great deal of water and wilts pathetically if I don't douse it every day.
I noticed last week that this little lump of gingerroot was growing green spikes, and instead of tossing it out, I decided to plant it in a pot and see what happens. I’ve no idea what ginger looks like when it is a plant and can’t wait to find out.
I think this means I am really “settling”. I do hope Luca is interested in renewing the lease for a four-year run, since I’m certainly in no mood to move and can’t afford to buy a place. There’s an Italian proverb: “If you would be happy for a week take a wife; If you would be happy for a month kill a pig; But if you would be happy all your life plant a garden.”
It’s just too bad that there isn’t enough room to keep chickens and ducks. I would so love to keep ducks. (So would Winnie!)
Some Irish people are saying that the country's most recent troubles are the result of a fairy curse after the government ran the M 3 motorway through Tara Skryne Valley, destroying a number of the ancient hill forts. The "desecration" of the Hill of Tara, the ancient seat of Irish kings, has particularly placed Ireland under a curse.
"The Hill of Tara: Activists claim an ancient curse lays over Ireland for the destruction of the fairy forts"
Apparently, part of the curse is the loss by Irish journalists of the knowledge of the difference between "lays" and "lies".
I'm therefore inclined to believe this theory.
Among the sites destroyed for the motorway was Lismullin Henge, a 4,000 year old astronomical observatory and place of worship hailed as one of the most important archaeological finds of the century.
The order for this piece of desecration was signed by then-Minister for the Environment Dick Roche, who
was since held up by an armed gang in the Druids Glen Hotel and also lost his job and was then demoted.
Martin Cullen, the then Minister for Transport nearly got sucked out of a helicopter when the door fell off on one of his extravagantly expensive trips. The chief Health and Safety Officer was seriously injured by a falling tree when felling began at Rath Lugh in 2007.A worker was killed when he became trapped at Fairyhouse where there have been many accidents on this stretch of road.
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David Cameron (that's the Prime Minister of Great Britain for our 'Merican readers) has enjoined schools to teach "happiness" lessons. This, as you might expect, has raised some eyebrows from various quarters.
David Cameron is obsessed with happiness...and is spending millions of taxpayers’ money on surveys to chart our every mood.
He wants the National Well-Being to be calculated and incorporated into future social policy. Does this mean the Government plans to penalise the people (like me) who are what I call creative pessimists?
Recently, Dave ordered the Office for National Statistics to ask 14,000 of us to complete ‘time diaries’, and another 4,000 to calculate (on a scale of one to ten) just how much they enjoyed each and every activity in their day.
That exercise is costing £1.5 million — which given the millions of people looking for work, many might feel we can ill afford.
I have one or two reactions: first, if he is the leader of Britain's ostensible "conservative" wing in politics, why are he and his party working so hard to barge into the inner lives of Britain's citizens? It is an axiom of conservative thought that free British people have a right to be as miserable as they want. It is the Left's modus to be interfering busybodies.
Second, and perhaps in contradiction to the above, it strikes me as not such a bad thing for a very stupid person to think. It seems as if Cameron's instincts are to try to make people happier, which is good, but equally instinctive is his assumption that it is the government's place to do so, which emphatically is not.
Mr. Cameron, apparently, needs a lesson in what government is for. Government, according to conservative thought, exists to keep the country safe from foreign invasion, to keep the peace at home and to create an environment in which citizens may get on with their lives unmolested by centrally imposed Bright Ideas. By these, I offer Bright Idea examples of the past like collectivisation, mass deportation of populations, gulags and "happiness courses". In the very furthest stretches of our theory, it might be allowed that a government may, with proper controls by the citizenry, keep the trains running on time, maintain the roads and help local communities build and maintain schools and hospitals (though these last two really should be the purview of the Church who, after all, invented them).
But I excuse Mr. Cameron on two grounds. First that he is a thoroughgoing, liberally educated modern who therefore is too stupid to know how to find his head with both hands and a Landsat and, like nearly every other British person I've ever met, does not know what "conservatism" means. They have been told all their lives by the BBC and hte Guardian that "conservative" simply means "evil". I will grant him good intentions, with his Bright Ideas like "Big Society" and "happiness courses" in schools, but give him an overall F- for failing to grasp the purpose of his office.
However, even in this last, I find it easy to forgive him. As we have stated above, he is a typical modern, morally illiterate British heathen who does not, therefore, have the faintest notion how a society is supposed to be structured and run. Like most Britons he simply assumes that government is supposed to dictate and run every aspect of people's lives for them. Crucially, he has forgotten the purpose and function not only of government, but of religion. If he wanted to spend his life making the British people happy, he should have become a priest. But as it is, he wants to give citizens the meaning of life and the secret to happiness without knowing it himself.
I can help with this.
Mr. Cameron, it is not the job of government to make people "happy". That is the job of religion. Specifically it is the purpose of the True Religion (which, of course, they have not had in Britain since 1534) to teach people how to live their lives and be happy.
You're welcome.
* ~ * ~ *
18 year-old Marc, who I understand is quite the up-and-coming thing among Catholic bloggers, tells those who don't know what it is like to be a Catholic:
It's like sex. Wait, no, people will think I'm 18. It's like waking up in the morning, looking outside, and realizing that someone had replaced your ordinary route to work with a roller-coaster, your pen with a sword, and your friends with gods. Not really. It's like everything smelled of your favorite smell and you never got sick of smelling it. But not quite. It's steak and cigars. It's like being constantly punched in the face. Closer, warmer. It's the feeling you get when you think you've reached the top of the stairs, but you haven't, you actually have one step left, and so you trip over it, and while you're laying sprawled out on the floor, crying, you check Facebook and realize that you have 37 notifications and 700 new friend requests, so you smile to yourself, pour a large glass of red, and read a 1000 year old book about some one who had a similar experience.
* ~ * ~ *
It has come into the news many times in recent years that British Christians often find themselves on the wrong side of the law when they dare to assert any aspect of their faith in public. Many, many stories have appeared, too many for me to keep track of. Fortunately, I don't have to, since the Christian Institute is doing that work.
Briefly, a Christian cafe owner in Blackpool, James Murray, was threatened with arrest by local police because he plays bible verses on a flatscreen TV in his cafe. No music or audio of any kind, just the verses with pictures of candles and things in the background. Now, while it is not illegal to show bible verses in public, it becomes an offense if someone takes offense.
And this is at the core of the whole problem, this major shift in the focus of law. The law in Britain no longer concerns itself with real, verifiable, objective acts, but is now focusing on phantasmic, internal, subjective experiences that are "verified" only by the word of the person experiencing them.
The law that is usually breached in these kinds of cases is the Public Order Act, section 5 of which states,
"(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he:
(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or (b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,
within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby."
That little bit at the end is the kicker. "...a person likely to be caused..."
The statutory defences are as follows:
(a) The defendant had no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be alarmed or distressed by his action. (b) The defendant was in a dwelling and had no reason to believe that his behaviour would be seen or heard by any person outside any dwelling. (c) The conduct was reasonable.
Do you see it? The whole concept behind such a law should be anathema to British Common Law. An offense has only occurred when someone has the subjective experience of being offended.
If no one takes offense, then the same act, playing bible verses in a shop, is totally within the law.
But should someone be offended, then it is an offence for which the perpetrator may be arrested, detained and ultimately fined up to £1000. This perp. it must be emphasised, has committed no individual act that is in contravention of any law...until someone who sees it becomes offended.
Moreover, under the list of statutory defences is one, the first and most important, that requires the putative offender to have the ability to read minds and see the future.
A society based on the rule of law cannot start making laws that are subject to the whim of the individual citizen.
On the question, that so vexes the minds of art students of the nailing-chairs-to-walls school, 'what is art?' Vasari had this:
Art owes its origin to Nature herself... this beautiful creation, the world, supplied the first model, while the original teacher was that divine intelligence which has not only made us superior to the other animals, but like God Himself, if I may venture to say it.
Progress on Mr. Big has been slow, but I've learned a lot
When I started, I had no idea how to enlarge a drawing to scale. I just made it up as I went along, and learned a great deal.
But, piano, piano, as the Italians say. A little bit at a time and he comes along.
Having a DEUCE of a time with the modeling on the back of his knee. As you can see...
So, to keep my brain from exploding in frustration, I took a little break and sketched a copy of this painting, with the thought that I could figure out the nice little jacket she's got on and maybe copy it in linen. Only with less frilly stuff, obviously.
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