Trussed Rooster in a Chair

This painting by Picasso is called ‘Trussed Rooster in a Chair’ and is found in the museum in his home town of Málaga. It was created during his war years in Paris, and you can find a certain tortured quality in it. At the same time it shows a number of other features typical of him: the deconstruction of form, the echo of primitivism, seeing as imagination, a hint of the mythic. All these aspects may be found in the multifarious category called ‘romanticism,’ sharing a desire to feel one’s way past a sterile modern rationalism. We are still wrestling with this, in both our politics and religion.

Peace +GRS

Posted by The Rt. Rev. George Sumner with

Vacation Blog 1

 

I saw the rug above in a Moroccan shop, where the merchant mentioned the Berber origin of its triangular design. One cannot be sure, but can easily imagine its artistic transmission over the centuries from indigenous, to Arabic, to Spanish, to indigenous once again (the case I have in mind being the Navajo of the American southwest). From this we can readily ask: so whose is it after all? And how stable the identities we claim and defend? What if ‘ethnicity’ is as much what we’ve borrowed and how we’ve passed it on? This theme of handing-on, ‘traditio,’ at the heart of identity, is of course in no way foreign to the New Testament.

Peace, +GRS

Posted by The Rt. Rev. George Sumner with

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Complete the Race (II Timothy 4:17)

At the end of our vacation we find ourselves in Chicago for its Marathon weekend (the fastest, I have read this morning, perhaps because it is cool and relatively level). Marathons offer many good things. You can see world-class athletes from places like Ethiopia and Kenya. There is a feel of fiesta with signs by family members, getups by some for-fun runners, and food for sale.

But as I looked out my hotel window at 7:30 a.m., I watched the race of competitors who have lost legs or their use. Wheeling vehicles by arm for 26 miles means serious fitness and determination.

Those competitors were to me, this morning, a symbol of the Church too. For each is wounded. The larger family cheers them on. Each by grace has risen up to run the race. Ahead is the goal, the prize, the welcome home. We find the companionship of Jesus the Lord, there, and along the route too.

Amen.

GRS

 

   

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