Catholicism has a rich tradition of integrating sensory experience with religious worship. This Italian ad campaign, however, looks to a more Eastern tradition for its holistic imagery.
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The Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services provides a graphic reason to avoid noodly appendages.
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Danmarks Radio's youth club Skum has named eighteen-year-old Huda Falah Miss Headscarf 2008. Hijab Style describes the controversy surrounding this contest and provides a comprehensive set of links (including an instructive video interview); Faith Central ponders the implications.
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Via Animal, neo-Jesus Kanye West's shutter shades go ecumenical in the latest issue of Islamic trendmag Elan.
]]>Call the fire men--Parisian psychobilly burns like hellfire in this impish song from the Washington Dead Cats.
]]>]]>Azman Mohamad Daham, a spokesman for Kota Bharu municipality, said the latest suggestion contained in leaflets was part of a two-year old campaign.
"We just distribute pamphlets," he said. "Our minimum guideline is [women] must wear headscarves. The rest is up to them. If they want to follow the 100% Islamic way, it's up to them."
The goal of the modesty drive was to prevent rape and safeguard the women's dignity, he said.
It advises that women should refrain from using heavy makeup, particularly bright lipstick. Loud high-heel shoes should also be avoided, though if women insisted on wearing them the heels could be padded with rubber to mute the sound.
This morning on my walk to work I noticed that the demolition of an office building had exposed a church to public view--and not just any church, but Manhattan's first Roman Catholic parish. Drawn by the sight I decided to do a walk-through. The ornamentation, the altars, the markers commemorating the history of building and craft--the place was a vivid reminder of a visual style in some ways alien to life today, but at the same time its direct antecedent.
The blend of sensory richness and spirituality reminded me of this recent article on the goldsmiths of Iraq. Gold as an expression of transformative identity has a long history there, a tradition evident not just in the Bible but in the diffusion of its iconic values throughout the globe. Which is just one more why the plight of Iraq's goldsmiths is so tragic--it's not just that the invasion led to the pillaging of ancient art; Iraq is losing the very artists whose work help gives life meaning.
Even more disturbing--the role of religious conflict in this spiritual implosion. For more on that check out the whole article; for now, a poignant reminder of one family's lost golden age:
]]>For Walid, goldsmithing is more than a business, it is a family tradition too important to abandon.
His grandfather worked on the golden-domed Kadhimiya shrine, where Imam Musa al Kadhim and his grandson, Muhammad Taqi, revered by Shiite Muslims, are said to be buried.
His father made jewelry for the Iraqi royal family.
A faded photograph hanging above Walid's counter shows his father with the portable wooden box he used to display his wares before he opened a store in 1934 in Baghdad's most famous gold bazaar, which fills the winding alleys leading to the shrine. . . .
The jewelry sold in the Kadhimiya district is especially prized by Iraq's majority Shiites, who consider it to be a blessing from the imams buried there.
Before U.S.-led forces invaded the country in 2003, the shopkeepers say, as many as 3,000 Iranians also visited the shrine every day. After offering a prayer to the imams, the pilgrims would join the bustling throngs to shop for gold.
Via Murketing, a cola-flavored church sign.
]]>]]>[Li]ike the TV series, the film offers much that will resonate with singles—and yes, even Christians—who see themselves not just as a demographic in a Barna poll but as sexual beings who wrestle with balancing loneliness and a desire for romantic love with a commitment to purity and platitudes like "true love waits." (And waits. And waits.)
Though many viewers were no doubt drawn by the sex or the sisterhood or the shoes, it was Carrie's thought-provoking, vulnerable, and relatable wrestling with life that made the show not just popular, but a pop-culture phenomenon.
And a phenomenon even for many Christians. For years, good churchgoing friends of mine secretly raved about Sex and the City. They told me that I, a 30-something single woman (and a singles columnist to boot), would appreciate the randy little show. I was a late adopter only because I didn't have cable. When the somewhat sanitized version showed up on WGN, I was intrigued. I could've done without the "man-izing" and definitely without the nudity, when I rented the original version. But it was refreshing to have a single woman's sexuality acknowledged. In stark contrast, the last time anyone in a Christian setting spoke to the fact that I'm a sexual human being was in a college church group, where I was blithely instructed that "true love waits." Well, 15 years later, it's still waiting. And it ain't so blithely simple.
Most of the few Christian voices speaking to the growing single segment of the population offer ten easy steps to find our soulmate. As if it's that wondrously simple. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, however, show how challenging it really can be for intelligent, accomplished, and admittedly neurotic women to find lasting love. They, unlike many Christians, don't insult my intelligence. Instead they speak to the complexities of relationships in a postmodern age—addressing baby lust, the mommy wars, sexual temptation, dating outside your "class," commitment-phobia, the reluctant desire to be rescued by a man, and the simultaneous fear that you'll lose your own hard-won identity in the process. Yes, materialism and hedonism abound. But so does a messy wrestling with complex new realities of life that I wish I saw more of in Christian circles.
"Just because you're Christian doesn't mean you can't self mutilate or be anorexic."
This is just one of the intriguing observations on this LiveJournal blog post about one woman's visit to her strict Reformed Baptist relatives. Our protagonist sees biblical parallels for self-mutilation and embraces her ana/SI/bisexual identity. Her relatives "think 18th century dresses are immoral."
Pictured above: a less restrictive approach to Christian adornment, one of a series of photos featuring a Christian model with an embedded crucifix piercing.
Luis Antonio Aguerotorregrosa--"El Hijo de America"--operates on tourist beaches in Cuba, charging up to five dollars a photo.
]]>Sure, the little hands look cute . . . until you realize they're printed in blood.
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