There’s a bit of a warm spell here in Chicago this week. It’s been about 50-60 for about four days now. It’s nice, but windy and rainy, which tends to be a side effect of warm winter weather here. I’m not sure what it is about a drizzle, but it increases traffic tenfold. Although, traffic might be explained by President Bush’s visit yesterday. Not really sure.
2008… election year. Soon we’ll have a new president. I’m not sure what the next one will bring, but he (she?) will have to be strong, intelligent, and charismatic. America is in dire straights, and we need much more than a figurehead. We need a leader.
Anyhow, back to the strange title of today’s entry. I’ve always found religious artifacts to be an interesting thing. One one hand, you have grand and tasteful works, marble statues, beautiful architecture, and even exquisite works of art. A look at some of these pieces will show you the amount of love that was put into them.
Then there’s the other side, full of cheesy and chintzy merchandise. Light-up wise men, mass-produced plastic crosses from Taiwan, and a large plastic Jesus figure. I saw Jesus lying there on the side of the road, not too far from where I saw the bible that one day. His face was to the ground and the wind made him wobble back and forth. It was sad, really. I’m not the most religious sort anymore, but even a plastic statue of Jesus deserves better than that.
Maybe we should create less chintzy items and focus on more worthwhile pieces of art, the sort people wouldn’t want to throw away.
Zel-kun out.
Zaida | 08-Jan-08 at 10:19 am | Permalink
aw, poor plastic Jesus =(
That made even ME a bit sad…
and I agree, religious items should be made with more time and care.
Julie Scott | 08-Jan-08 at 12:31 pm | Permalink
I blame the increasing commercialization of Christmas. People who have little or no use for Christianity for the rest of the year, but feel compelled to put up nativities, no matter how cheesy, just because that’s what you do, or something.
Penny Arcade actually had a good strip up about this last week.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/26
Sabrejack | 08-Jan-08 at 12:44 pm | Permalink
Poor people need jesus too! You can’t make them all out of marble.
David N. Scott | 08-Jan-08 at 1:56 pm | Permalink
Wow, good point, SJ.
Commercialized/junky Christian stuff has always been weird to me. But I guess the long and the short of it is that realization of a religion refelcts a culture, and our culture is commercialized/junky.
Still, an odd little thing. Finding discarded religious artifacts. Surprisingly moving.