Claire, Gabriele, and I were wondering what was going on in the one scene shown in several paintings and mosaics at the Greek Orthodox church. Something like the one below.

We wondered who was the old man on the left and the young man or woman on the right. And then there was an old man in chains at the bottom.

A little research revealed this is a traditional icon of the Resurrection or the “Harrowing of Hell” when Jesus descended into hell to free the trapped souls.

In the painting Jesus has crashed through the gates of hell and is freeing the two souls longest trapped, Adam and Eve. A demon or trapped soul will be shown under foot, often with many locks being unlocked (freeing of souls.) Sometimes angels and prophets accompany Jesus in these scenes. If there is a word at the top, it usually means “rising up.”

For some reason it is a tradition to show Adam old and Eve young. I went googling to find out why. This is one of those things hard to google. “why is adam old and eve young in greek painting”.

In searching I found a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury celebrating the unveiling of a painting just completed and being unveiled at St Andrew Holburn in London. It’s a pretty good sermon where he invites the audience to look closely at all of the meaning packed into the painting (typical of an icon.)

A key part of his sermon is how old Adam and Eve appear in the painting, representing their “4,000 winters.” So that answers the old question, but I wondered why the artist had deviated from the tradition of making Eve young. I zoomed in. I don’t think she is old in this painting (below). I think the artist stuck with the tradition, and the Archbishop missed an opportunity to answer my question about a young Eve. (At least he answered about an old Adam.) Maybe it is something about renewal / starting over.

I wonder if the Archbishop consulted the artist before writing the sermon? Anyway, I like the paintings of this scene, because it focuses not on the cross, but on what happened as a result.

www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2561

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Photos back from the lab. After going to dinner at Ted’s Grill, we ate cake, ice cream, and opened presents at home. Claire made a very elaborate happy birthday card based on a cell phone and text message. See the 4 photos where Danny and Claire act out getting a giant text message. There was a lot of dancing going on during the candle blowing… I can’t remember why. Girls?

For you non texters, here is a key:

• <3 is a heart shape symbol for "love"
• U R is short for “you are”
• Bro is short for “brother”

[sent this letter this morning]

TO: [email protected]

re: “Notre Dame Professor McInerny said: Notre Dame has forfeited its right to call itself a Catholic university.” link | pdf

Dear Father Jenkins,

I agree with Professor McInerny. I have watched Notre Dame become less Catholic over time in pursuit of a goal to join the ranks of liberal, secular ivy league schools. The student parking lots have filled with BMWs. The dining halls would be the envy of Caligula. Everything has gone materially upscale in the pursuit of prestige.

In 2001, my oldest daughter was awarded early acceptance to Notre Dame. To my surprise, she decided to *not* pursue the material path that she saw there. She is now serving in the Peace Corps, and I’ve never been more proud of her. (I hope parental pride is not a deadly sin.) Since then many priests have cautioned me that Notre Dame is no place to send our children for a Catholic education. Are you aware of that sentiment?

The commencement invitation is a last straw for me.

Is it possible to have all records of my attendance at Notre Dame purged or hidden? Can all mailing records be erased or set to “do not mail”? For the next four (I hope not eight) years, I would like to disassociate myself from the university. I am actively changing my resume, LinkedIn, Facebook , etc. to read “University of N—- D—“.

Jeb Cashin

Class of 1983 (in exile)

Or…

“And his garments became shining, and exceedingly white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can make white.”

Sounds like a quote describing Gandalf. But it is from today’s gospel Mark 9:3. What is a fuller, I wondered.

Mike Chavez is responsible for most of the photographs on the St. John Neumann website. He travels on most Life Teen trips, takes a lot of great shots, and uploads them to the SJN gallery.

I draw from his photos to populate the random banner that appears at the top of the website. This photo at Covecrest was very interesting because the dormant winter grass behind the crosses created near zero contrast, so they did not show up very well. However, because of the angle of reflection in the water, the light brown crosses, did show against the blue sky and green trees.

Click to zoom:

To accentuate this effect, I turned anything above the waterline gray scale and enhanced the colors below the waterline.

Many of you know about the industrious brothers associated with the Missionaries of the Poor. When Hurricane Dean wiped out over 1,000 homes in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, the brothers figured out how much they could build a new house for in materials ($200) and decided they would set a goal to build 400 houses. If you have seen them work, you would not bet against them.

Read more here, and follow the link to Missionaries of the Poor to contribute. Credit Card is the most efficient way to get funds to them.

As I worked on the 2005 Time Line in our Christmas card, I found myself wanting to create links… which do not work very well on a paper card. So I put them here. Some FAQs on the card:

Q: How was the front done? Who did the front?

A: Claire created this acrylic painting in her art class. She gets credit on the back. Kathy thought it would make a good Christmas card, so I photographed it. The browns and dark reds did not work too well with inkjet, so I experimented with sending the photo to Sam’s photo center via www.samsclub.com, which did the painting better justice.

The original painting does not have the same proportions as a 4 x 6 photo, so I copy pasted the left and right sides to make it wider. You may spot a repeat in the snowflakes and bells.

Grandad got out his magnifying glass to see if he could read the signature. He thought it said “Cassius Clay.” It doesn’t.

Q: Did Claire start 6th grade? I thought she was in 5th?

A: My mistake. I often forget these two peas-in-a-pod are three grades apart.

Q: Is Kelly sad in the net picture?

A: No. She is afraid. She was very worried she would fall through the net into the water below. She’s thin, you know.

Q: The colors in Merry Christmas on the front match the lightbulb colors on the front. Was that intentional? What font is that?

A: Yes, the coloring was intended. The font is Chalkboard and comes with Mac OS X Tiger. The card was composed in AppleWorks.

2005 Time Line

Jan:

Claire leads her basketball team to a championship. Jeb abandons Las Vegas business trip to beat ice storm in Atlanta (barely.)

Feb: Kathy and Danny work with Missionaries of the Poor in Kingston, Jamaica.

Mar: Danny pitches season opener for Brookwood. Kelly, Claire, and Danny all sustain sports injuries.

Apr: Danny

awarded half

academic scholarship to

Spring Hill College in Mobile.

May: Nicole graduates from UGA. Danny graduates from Brookwood. Danny pitches exciting playoff game against Lassiter and goes to prom.

June: Kelly and Claire drama camp and tennis camp. Danny vacations St. George Island. No summer swim team because of vacation schedules. Nicole and Psychic Hearts play Music Midtown on 99X stage.

July: Jeb and Danny evacuated from freshman orientation by Hurricane Dennis. Sleep in Wal-Mart parking lot. Cashin-Ettensohn family vacation Perdido Key. Grandad retires FOPAB newsletter, another victim of the Internet.

Aug: Kathy takes us on Windjammer barefoot cruise (see photo.) Kathy and Jeb take Danny to Spring Hill. Kelly starts 8th, Claire 6th.

Sep: Kelly and Claire play church softball and soccer. Danny evacuated by Hurricane Katrina and Spring Hill shuts down for a week. Kathy volunteers with Red Cross to help Katrina victims. Kelly joins

running club.

Nicole and

Psychic Hearts play in the CMJ Music Marathon at the Lincoln Center in NYC.

Oct: Kathy and Jeb join RCIA. Kelly in district honors chorus in Athens. Harley (parakeet) dies after a long life.

Nov: Jeb in Callaway for management meeting. Nicole gets raise as manager of UPS store.

Dec: Kathy starts new job in real estate. Gramalie treats us all to a wonderful visit to the Georgia Aquarium and a

delicious

dinner. Danny

goes to work

for Grant in Athens.

Kelly and Claire went through altar server training and assisted in their first mass on November 27th. There was much discussion and concern about the three different duties: bell ringer, book handler, and cross bearer. Claire set up a pretend altar at home and had me play the priest so she could get the timing of the bells down. The trickiest is the first, single ring as the priest extends his hands over the gifts. This is a relatively new ring for our parish, having traditionally had the two 3-bells.

The more experienced altar server took on book duty. Claire ended up being the cross bearer, and Kelly handled the bells. Because it was the start of advent, there was a little change in sequences, so the time for ringing the 1-bell came early, but Kelly did some quick thinking and handled it smoothly.

Both girls did very well, and sat very still. Claire managed to only wiggle her feet a few times, which was probably only noticeable to her dad.

I accidentally took a flash picture of the altar at the beginning of mass. (I had turned off the flash, but when the camera powered itself down and I had to turn it on again, the flash reset.) Father Bill noticed and said something to Kathy later, but I am not going to be ex-communicated.

Bill Marten announced that this was the two girls first mass and they got a round of applause

Dad called me last night to present our bill for the group vacation. He explained a very complex formula he used in a spreadsheet to figure out that we owed $655.99. I tried to take notes. There was a per head charge of $135.20 adjusted by some factor that could be minus $40 up to plus $50. It had to do with who got what room and how many people were in the room as to what factor got applied. The factors ranged from 3 to 10.

“I wish I could just e-mail this to you,” Dad said, “but I don’t know how to send attachments.” I told him sending attachments was pretty easy. Just look for an “Enclose” button and pick the file you want to attach. He called me early this morning to find out if I had received the attachment, and he was surprised I was still in bed. I explained I had been up to 2 moving Wart downtown.

Dad has as much appreciation for a Mac OS X server as I have for accounting.

The interesting thing was that the Yahoo e-mail I received presented the table all lined up neatly in the e-mail instead of as an attachment, so I’m not sure how Dad sent the table. I don’t recall getting anything like this. See this posting on Tucker.

P.S.

Like any good accountant, I accused Dad of hiding the truth with his complex formulas. Dad is really a compassionate conservative socialist at heart, and is drawing from disposable income accordingly.