The beer can coffin reminds me of this classic from 2004--the Doctor Who-inspired TARDIS coffin designed for artist Tim Haws, a fan who died of cancer at age 43.

And according to this recent conference in the UK, having more Doctor Who references in church could be a path toward spiritual revival. From the London Telegraph, here's The Church is Ailing--Send for Dr. Who:

The number of under-16s attending Church of England services fell by almost 20 per cent between 2000 and 2006, but the Church believes that improving communication can reverse that trend.

Andrew Wooding, a spokesman for the Church Army, which organised the conference, said that its intention was to give vicars new ideas for conveying their message.

"There are countless examples of Christian symbolism in Doctor Who, which we can use to get across ideas that can otherwise be difficult to explain."

"Clergy shouldn't be afraid to engage with popular culture as for many young people television plays a large role in their thinking," he said.

Posted by jat at 08:20 AM | Permalink

From Oscar-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody's blog response to the supposed scandal of (partially) nude photos from her past. You can buy a variation of this and other "Twisted Religious Shirts" at FoulMouthShirts.com

Posted by jat at 12:43 AM | Permalink

Even in the midst of the dreaded deadline doom, this story is sure to haunt me all day. Be sure to click through for the entire fascinating obituary of the last native speaker of Eyak.

Posted by jat at 11:20 AM | Permalink

The Christian abstinence movement has swayed a number of administrators in U.S. schools to establish an abstinence-only curriculum in their sex-ed classes. Two teens in Illinois have been suspended for protesting the abstinence message in their school by wearing t-shirts festooned with condoms and brandishing the message, "Safe Sex or No Sex."

Posted by jat at 10:28 AM | Permalink

Looks like my hidden agenda has been exposed. The last paragraph tells all:

An elaborate, jewel-inlaid religious icon has become the subject of a federal forfeiture suit against a convicted Reynosa drug boss.

Prosecutors allege that Carlos Landín-Martinez — a 52-year-old former Tamaulipas police officer turned second-in-command of Gulf Cartel operations in Reynosa — purchased the gold jewelry with proceeds from drug smuggling operations within the United States.

Landín-Martinez was wearing the piece when agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration arrested him at a local H-E-B in July.

In the form of a pendant, it features the image of Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, inlaid with 128 diamonds, 36 emeralds and one ruby, according to an affidavit filed in the case. It is appraised at a value of more than $12,000.

“Persons who engage in large-scale drug trafficking tend to wear expensive gold jewelry as visible proof that they have been successful,” DEA agent Jaime A. Fernandez said in the document. They wear it “as evidence that they are criminals of consequence.”

Posted by jat at 02:51 PM | Permalink

Although the righteous folks at Miss Toronto Tourism believe that tarot card reading is too "dark arts" for beauty pageants, the Barbie Tarot reveals that it may be a perfect fit.

Posted by jat at 11:53 AM | Permalink

One old model of secularization theory posits that an abundance of choices in the spiritual marketplace can create a spiritual aporia--there are so many viable choices that it can be hard to pick just one, thereby leaving us with nothing.

Whatever the value of that theory in understanding society, it sure applies to this site in regard to the C.B. Gardner Witches Mill Collection that's been selling on eBay, which has so many cool pieces that I've been dithering over which one to post. Be sure to click over to another of my favorite daily reads--AltReligion--for the scoop.

Why did I pick the image above? Well, it's a magic square, a wonderful example of a spiritual icon now reincarnated in a pop secular form. For an illustrated history of the link between magic squares and sudoku, check out this article from Plus as well as this fun page from EMAS Portsmouth, which integrates mathematical training with cultural traditions.

Posted by jat at 12:24 PM | Permalink

A great quote from a revealing interview with Persepolis’ Marianne Satrapi at Payvand's Iran News.

Posted by jat at 01:13 PM | Permalink

The following pictures of Benazir Bhutto may not seem appropriate in light of her recent assassination. Wouldn't it be more respectful to show her in more formal dress with traditional head covering, as has been the norm since her death?

I don't think so. To understand her--and to understand why so many people wanted her dead--we have to go beyond her strategic public image to see her as she was.

HT: Agha Khanium

Posted by jat at 12:21 AM | Permalink

The Major League Baseball steroid scandal prompts this observation from Dallas News Religion:

How many of these guys wear crucifixes on their gold chains, make the sign of the cross when they come up to the plate, or point heavenward after they make a good pitch to get out of a jam?

What, exactly, are they praying for? That Jesus help them remember to pack their syringes before road trips?

Posted by jat at 11:46 AM | Permalink

Two stories out of Canada today highlight an emerging twist in the American culture war:

Soccer rules tangled up in Hijab: an Edmonton girls team is benched after a league bans Islamic head scarves during games

Killed for not wearing a Hijab: A father kills his daughter for removing her hijab at school

And in more hopeful news, the New York press is abuzz with the story of how a Muslim guy saved two Jews being beaten up on the subway by self-proclaimed Catholics, one of whom preceded the attack by flashing his Jesus tattoo.

The dumbest part of the assault? One of the attackers said it was in retribution for the Jews killing Jesus on Hanukkah.

Posted by jat at 11:58 AM | Permalink

In business news today, Penthouse has acquired Various, Inc., owner of sex and swingers community AdultFriendFinder.com, for five hundred million dollars. Also in the Various stable: BigChurch.com, a Christian dating site.

Talk about "unequally yoked"!*

*In the "unequally yoked" link, the "Can Jews and Baptist Marry Blog" (now that's niche marketing!) asks the age-old question, "can a practicing Jew and a practicing Baptist co-exist?" I actually learned the answer to this on an old episode of Doctor Who. Turns out a Jew and Baptist can co-exist as long as they don't touch each other, but if they kiss the whole universe will collapse.

I don't even want to begin to tell you what can happen with a Zoroastrian and Pentecostal . . .

Posted by jat at 10:38 AM | Permalink

Neatorama spots this intriguing story out of India, in which a man, cursed with calamities after killing dogs years ago, seeks to reverse the curse by marrying a stray dog. This remedy came from an astrologer, which is arguably one reason why I should stop reading my horoscope while I'm ahead ("don't waste time and energy on passing distractions"--ooooops).

Two things about this story caught my eye. One, of course, was the wedding garb: a traditional bright colored sari and garland. The other is the all too Western reduction of the event to sex:

Mr Selvakumar is not the first man to have hit the headlines for having romantic relations with animals.

Last year a Sudanese man was forced to marry a goat after village elders discovered him having sex with her. The goat died shortly afterwards.

Posted by jat at 03:02 PM | Permalink

The big news in New York today: the confession of the personal assistant who killed celebrity real-estate agent Linda Steiner.

The murder weapon: a "yoga stick" or "Pilates bar." For folks who didn't realize that spiritual exercise could kill, here are a couple likely suspects:

Posted by jat at 02:10 PM | Permalink

New York City has been mourning the loss of Phil Rizzuto, legendary Hall of Fame baseball player and long-time announcer for the New York Yankees. Before the game played the night he died, the Yankees held a brief but intense memorial service, replete with an Ave Maria and moment of silence that were as any church service.

Here are a couple of Rizzuto's own impromptu hymns, from O Holy Cow!, a book of "found poetry" collecting comments Rizzuto made while announcing Yankees games. The occasion: the tragic death of Yankees' captain Thurman Munson in a plane crash.

Prayer for the Captain

There's a little prayer I always say
Whenever I think of my family or when I'm flying,
When I'm afraid, and I am afraid of flying.
It's just a little one. You can say it no matter what,
Whether you're Catholic or Jewish or Protestant or
whatever.
And I've probably said it a thousand times
Since I heard the news on Thurman Munson.

It's not trying to be maudlin or anything.
His Eminence, Cardinal Cooke, is going to come out
And say a little prayer for Thurman Munson.
But this is just a little one I say time and time again,
It's just: Angel of God, Thurman's guardian dear,
To whom his love commits him here there or everywhere,
Ever this night and day be at his side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide.

For some reason it makes me feel like I'm talking to
Thurman,
Or whoever's name you put in there,
Whether it be my wife or any of my children, my parents
or anything.
It's just something to keep you really from going bananas.
Because if you let this,
If you keep thinking about what happened, and you can't
understand it,
That's what really drives you to despair.

Faith. You gotta have faith.
You know, they say time heals all wounds,
And I don't quite agree with that a hundred percent.
It gets you to cope with wounds.
You carry them the rest of your life.

August 3, 1979
Baltimore at New York
Pregame show

The Man in the Moon

The Yankees have had a traumatic four days.
Actually five days.
That terrible crash with Thurman Munson.
To go through all that agony,
And then today,
You and I along with the rest of the team
Flew to Canton for the services,
And the family....

Very upset.

You know, it might,
It might sound corny.
But we have the most beautiful full moon tonight.
And the crowd,
Enjoying whatever is going on right now.
They say it might sound corny,
But to me it's some kind of a,
Like an omen.

Both the moon and Thurman Munson,
Both ascending up into heaven.
I just can't get it out of my mind.
I just saw that full moon,
And it just reminded me of Thurman.
And that's it.

August 6, 1979
Baltimore at New York
Ron Guidry pitching to Lee May
Fifth inning, bases empty, no outs
Orioles lead 1-0

Posted by jat at 04:23 PM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 11:54 AM | Permalink

Terms such as "evangelist" and "evangelical" derive from the Greek verb "euangelizo," commonly translated along the lines of "to announce good news." The concept of news here isn't a reference to journalism per se, but judging from the following internal memo from the Executive Editor of the Seattle Times news might have a spiritual significance beyond the religion beat. The occasion: dressing down reporters who cheered the resignation of Karl Rove:

I ask you all to leave your personal politics at the front door for one simple reason: A good newsroom is a sacred and magical place in which we can and should test every assumption, challenge each other's thinking, ask the fundamental questions those in power hope we will overlook.

Of course, this might just be a colossal ruse to get the newspaper to fund training in appreciation for, um, multiple positions at San Francisco's Sacred Space Institute!

Posted by jat at 10:51 AM | Permalink

Mary Ann Sorrentino, columnist and former Planned Parenthood director, writes this week on recent legal developments pertaining to the prohibition of chastity rings and the hijab in school.  She raises a key point:

Lydia Playfoot, a 16-year-old English student, regrets that London’s High Court rejected her request to wear a Christian “virginity ring” to school. Playfoot sees the ring as a religious symbol, representing her commitment to virginity before marriage. The High Court said the ring is not a religious symbol, but jewelry, which the school forbids for all students. . . .

Celibacy isn’t easy, especially for teens with raging hormones in their bodies and peer pressure pushing from the outside. I’m not sure all the rings and balls in the world can compete with young love and lust. I am happy to cheer for those who try to resist and also to be there to catch them if they fall.
 
But this virginity sideshow pales alongside bans on serious religious garb mandated by whatever holy texts wearers hold dear. It is worrisome that some courts are missing the same fine distinction that the British High Court, in its wisdom, made in the Playfoot case.

Posted by jat at 08:09 AM | Permalink

There's a new silver exhibit in Phoenix. One of the featured items: the Sumatran padung earpiece, which, when adjusted up or down, indicates a woman's marital status. Why would this jewelry have such an association, and not, say, a wedding ring?. As you can see from the following replica available at murnis.com, Its double spirals symbolize . . . um . . . the rod-like extension connotes . . .

Anyway, we're dealing with a family-friendly museum here, so let's move along now, shall we? Here's museum director Katie Anderson talking about the exhibit's religious significance:

And while sorority girls everywhere clamor for the silver Return to Tiffany necklace and bracelets, other cultures create fertility symbols with the precious metal. Known as fetishes, these objects vary in symbolism and meaning from culture to culture. It's religious iconography through jewelry, Anderson says: "Each culture's silver can tell us about the people who made them and who wore them."

Plus ca change . . .

Posted by jat at 10:41 AM | Permalink

Usually when you read about a church theft the objects in question are sacred--altar fixtures, donations, innocence . . . (I kid, I kid!). But that's not what thieves stole a couple a couple days ago from an Episcopal church in Atlanta, where thieves stole the catalytic converters from three church vans and a bus.

Why a catalytic converter? For a moment my thoughts drifted toward the metaphorical, with embittered ex-Christians plotting the theft to keep the pastor from, well, catalyzing conversions. But it turns out that this explanation does not survive Ockham's razor. As this news article explains, catalytic converters contain platinum, making them useful to be harvested for dentistry and jewelry.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Posted by jat at 11:40 PM | Permalink

OK, so this article about developer Soheil Mosun, Ltd., isn't actually all that salacious, but it does provide an instructive look at the folks who built the Baha'i Temple for South America, as well as a couple of mosques and a Jewish memorial:

In essence, the firm makes jewellery for high-end developments. It's the "bling" in buildings.

Posted by jat at 11:00 AM | Permalink

Camfess.com is a new site for video confessions. Unlike its more famous predecessor, PostSecret, Camfess attempts to leverage the historic link between confessing and religion, from its logo

to its marketing material

"The act of confession - widely encouraged by religion and psychology alike — makes people better."

to anonymizing:

Posted by jat at 02:04 PM | Permalink

Brigitte Harris is a 26-year-old New Yorker who recently castrated and killed her stepfather, allegedly in response to years of sexual abuse. Her Myspace names: "XXLadyVengeanceXX" and "The Original DarkAngel."

Posted by jat at 09:35 AM | Permalink

While religion columns in mainstream U.S. newspapers are going the way of mainstream religion, The Times of London features not one, but two must-read blogs on religious affairs--not to mention stories that link religion to all sorts of other affairs, such as this morning's classic headline "Pontius Pilate, Post-homosexualists and Matthew Paris." This aside in today's Libby Purves's Faith Central is absolutely fabulous:

But religion, of course, has always had a fatal tendency to grow ornate and heavy with shiny symbols. I have just discovered a site called Blingdom of God, and am off to lie down and get over it.

As we, um, are wont to say here in the colonies, mission accomplished. And in honor of our UK readers, here's a blast from the past: the secret spiritual significance of the TARDIS key!

Doctor Who extra (with spoilers for US folks):

Here's a post asking whether the season finale of Doctor Who Series 3 has a Christian subtext. More thoughts on this later . . .

Posted by jat at 02:37 PM | Permalink

Mother issues are a sign of a healthy child. That, at least, is the conclusion of a recent university study, which found that children who openly resist their mother's command reflect an emerging mature sense of self. Children who merely comply, however, exhibit a lack of self-confidence and a proclivity toward depression, traits likely to have unfortunate ramifications throughout their adult lives.

Which raises an intriguing question about what the jewelry pictured here represents more generally about religious culture. It's a pendant of the Blessed Mother from the Synchronicity Foundation, a new age faith led by an initiated Vedic monk named Master Charles. MC claims to be experiencing unique visions of this divine figure, the maternal spirit that animates the world.

As Ellen Dissanayake astutely illustrates in Art and Culture, religion tends to embody values of maternal care-taking that have a distinct evolutionary advantage, particularly the importance of transcending a narrow sense of self. As intrinsic to our development as this is, what should we make of those who elevate the nurturing mother metaphor to the highest form of good? Are they creating a religion where the followers never grow up?

Posted by jat at 01:23 PM | Permalink

Wire services report this morning that a hacker named "Gabriel" claims to have obtained access to drafts of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.  The news articles don't reveal the spoilers or a link to the post, but if you're interested it's here--Full Disclosure: Harry Potter 0Day.

How does this pertain to the BofG?

What news reports don't tend to relate is that the hacker claims to have a religious motive.  Can spiritual adornment transform hacking into an act of faith?  You decide--and so you don't have to read the alleged spoilers should you want to remain pure, here's how Gabriel the arch-angel (in Greek, literally, angelos = "messenger") justifies his hack:

Yes, we did it.
We did it by following the precious words of the great Pope Benedict XVI when he still was Cardinal Josepth Ratzinger.
He explained why Harry Potter bring the youngs of our earth to Neo Paganism faith.

So we make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring.

The attack strategy was the easiest one.
The usual milw0rm downloaded exploit delivered by email/click-on-the-link/open-browser/click-on-this-animated-icon/back-connect to some employee of Bloomsbury Publishing, the company that's behind the Harry crap.

It's amazing to see how much people inside the company have copies and drafts of this book.
Curiosity killed the cat.

Who kill curiosity?

 

To protect you and your families

God bless you

Gabriel

Free spot - Fight terrorism: http://www.challenging-islam.org/articles/warraq-debate-muslims.htm

 

=

 

 

--  

Posted by jat at 09:26 AM | Permalink

Paris Hilton heading the site for a week = proof that I mucked up the cron job that was supposed to have enabled scheduled posting.  Quod erat demonstrandum and all that.

Ah well, no use crying over spilled entries.  As a reward for your patience (which endureth all things), here's one commenter's analogy of faith as to the ongoing Paris Hilton prison saga:

This is like Christ's final days!

Posted by jat at 03:18 PM | Permalink

From the latest Fortune magazine, a meditation on the current jewelry boom:

And while economic growth is obviously a big part of a country's growing bling factor, it's not the only one. People in fast-growing economies like Ireland, Vietnam and Guyana aren't buying as much jewelry as those in Chile, Brazil or Mexico. Differing tastes and demographics play a big role. Mexico, for example, is a country that's big on traditions, where arty jewelry that denotes a religious belief is popular.  . . .

"Culturally, it's all about jewelry. It's really blowing most everyone else away" says Jacques Voorhees, head of business-to-business online jeweler Polygon.

Posted by jat at 11:45 PM | Permalink

Conflict diamonds have long been in the news, but what about the ethics of gold?  A writer from New Scientist's Environment Blog went to Africa to see exactly what it took to make his gold wedding band:

it takes two tonnes of rock, blasted from the face, then hauled to the surface, ground up and treated with cyanide, to provide enough for my 10-gram ring. That’s one hell of a footprint for one ring.

 

And on top of that, making my ring required 5 tonnes of water, 30 tonnes of air pumped underground to keep the mine cool, enough electricity to run a large house for several days – and about 10 man-hours of labour. Now, as then, most underground workers are shipped in from villages in Mozambique and Lesotho and Kwazulu-Natal. And, even in the post-apartheid era, they are paid less than $10 a day.

 

 

Madness? You might think so. But in the biggest gold reserve on Earth, hundreds of thousands of miners and their families depend on the money that you and I pay out for our gold jewellery.

It's an old ethical dilemma.  The miners are arguably mistreated, yet if we boycott their product for gold marketed as more ethical or environmentally friendly, they stand to lose their livelihoods.  

Still, one has to wonder whether it is consistent to lay such a great burden on poor miners in order to proclaim that one's own burden is light?  

Posted by jat at 12:07 AM | Permalink

Speaking of weddings, here's a New York story out of love, symbols and the law. A guy named Sheldon decides that the first declaration of love needs a ritual as much as wedding . . . and ends up getting escorted from the Empire State Building by police. Excerpt below; full story in the latest Time Out New York.

See, Sheldon did more than just gaze into her eyes and say the words. He needed arts and crafts to express his feelings. He wanted to make a heart. “There are rituals for weddings and anniversaries,” he explains innocently, “but nothing for the first time you say ‘I love you.’ So I made one up.” In short, he crafted a wooden box, filled it with clay and wire, and led an unknowing Diane to the 102nd floor, where he planned to put it all together—unaware that the process would look exactly like assembling a bomb.

Posted by jat at 08:50 PM | Permalink

The following story appeared on the AP wires yesterday:

ESPN baseball analyst Peter Gammons was at Fenway Park on Saturday, his first visit to a major-league stadium since his brain aneurysm in June.

Gammons visited both clubhouses before the game between the Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The 61-year-old former newspaperman was speaking with New York manager Joe Torre in the visitors' clubhouse when hitting coach Don Mattingly came up to say hello.

What the AP left out, however, was that Mattingly came over to do more than say hello.  As mentioned on ESPN during the Red Sox/Yankees game Sunday, Mattingly presented Gammons with a cross pendant that Mattingly's wife had given him when he was going through health problems.

Posted by jat at 01:53 AM | Permalink

Counterfeit Chic today discusses a fascinating story on the trade in temple hair.  The issue:  Western women buying hair extensions composed of hair shaved off women in India, supposedly as part of temple rituals.  While this is arguably exploitive, according to the Western clientele temple hair is transcendent both in its physical & metaphysical qualities:  

"It's a wonderful thing," says Batsheva Schilis, 24, of Oakwood, Staten Island, who recently fitted extensions to her hair. "It doesn't frizz in the summer and is easy to straighten and maintain.

"But, if you're a spiritual person like me, you feel an energy from the chi of the woman who donated it. I don't think the Indian women are exploited. They see the ceremony as an honor."

More on the hair trade here, with photos.

Posted by jat at 12:12 PM | Permalink

Guilty conscience leads thief to return watches, religious medals stolen from nuns:

``Please help return these items to the sisters that they were stolen from, if possible,'' said the anonymous letter included with the parcel that ended up at Our Lady Help of Christians Church. ``The person who stole them asks for their forgiveness, as he has asked for God's forgiveness, and is extremely sorry for the pain that their theft caused.''

The note made reference to a 1981 theft. At the time, the convent was located on the church's land, but now resides two blocks away.

``Nothing like this has ever happened. It really surprised us,'' said Rev. John Sassani, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians. ``It shows that even if a long time passes, like 25 years, there is still a desire to make something that is wrong right.

``Will this person be forgiven as he's asking?'' Sassani asks. ``The only forgiveness in this case is God's forgiveness.''

Hmmm.  Sounds like the nuns are still ticked off.

Posted by jat at 09:42 AM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 09:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Former Secretary of State Madelyne Albright is promoting her new book, The Mighty and the Almighty, which discusses the role of religion in international affairs.   Secretary Albright is also known for the "showy brooches" she wears at public events, and her next book will use her brooches to illustrate today's faith-infused global politics!

Posted by jat at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The woman wearing this cross t-shirt is Claudia de Castro, part of a high-end brothel that has just been broken up by New York police.  The madam asserts that her brothel enabled otherwise disadvantaged Brazilian girls to afford buying houses back home.

Posted by jat at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The first tropical storm of the season is moving toward the Florida coast.  Pictured above, to mark the occasion:  a hurricane pendant from Florida's Sanibel Island Goldsmith.

Storms have long loomed large in spiritual imagery.  Even today, people link hurricanes to the wrath of God or Nature on our sins (whatever they may be).  In fact, the appearance of God in the storm goes back as far as the Garden of Eden.

After Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, they hear the voice of God l'ruach hayyom--in ancient Hebrew, "in the wind of the storm." The image in this passage is of God thundering out of a raging wind; no longer will Adam and Eve converse with their creator as of old, in the calm of an Eden at peace.  (Wanna impress your friends with your knowledge of linguistic arcana?  Tell them you, unlike the King James Bible translators, recognize that "yom" in context here is not "day," but an archaic cognate of the Akkadian umu, or "storm.")

The association of God with swirling storms points to an even deeper resonance between our perception of the divine and recurring patterns in nature.  Benoit Mandelbrot, for example, has described how the topology of turbulence can be explained using fractal geometry, an analysis that has shaped how meteorologists predict the course of storms.  We won't go into the math here--yet!  For now, here's another look at our old fractal friend, the spiral, itself a common image in spiritual adornment.  On the left, a spiral galaxy, and on the right, a hurricane--and for an accessible look at the underlying science, click the pic to visit [censored]. 

Posted by jat at 11:19 PM | Permalink

An international boycott has left the new Hamas government in Palestine with a serious budgetary shortfall.  Above, Palestinian women donate their jewelry to help make up for the lack of funds.

Posted by jat at 12:27 AM | Permalink

Today's Women's Wear Daily has a feature story on the politics of diamonds, focusing on a subject that we've featured several times here at the BofG:  conflict diamonds.  Read the WWD article linked here today while it's free!

Those interested in a more in depth exploration of the issue may want to check out the seven-minute documentary on the topic posted on youtube.com.  As the warning states, the film contains scenes of a violent and graphic nature, so if you're squeamish you might want to stick with newsprint.

Posted by jat at 08:30 AM | Permalink

"Reverence" is the theme of a new exhibit at the Hudson Valley Center of Contemporary Art.  The aim?  To bring together art that speaks of the transcendent without using the traditional visual rhetoric of religious iconography.

Pictured on the left is "Exaltation," one of the exhibit's featured works.  The artist is Damien Hirst, known for his art utilizing dead animals.  Exaltation is no different--it's actually composed of butterfly wings.  Here's the description from the HVCCC:

"Thousands of gorgeous and variegated butterfly wings are applied in a dense and specific pattern giving the sense of a wondrous stained glass cathedral window. Here the use of color, translucence and height, drawing the eyes and the spirit ever upward, are features inherent to reverent worship, echoing the Psalm’s: 'I lift my eyes up to the heights, from whence I draw my inspiration'. The work is ultimately a powerful metaphor for life and death and transcendence of nature and the spirit."

Posted by jat at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Above is a Peace pendant from the Innergy collection by Paula Abdul, the pop star enjoying a career rebirth as a judge on American Idol.  Abdul's jewelry has been getting a bit of press recently after selling out in her appearance on QVC.    

The name of the collection points to its connection with spiritual adornment:  Innergy is part of a greater trend toward jewelry of meaning.  In this case, the message is one of personal fulfillment.  Inscribed in the Peace pendant:  "Find Your Inner Peace . . . Be Who You Are Completely." 

Of course, there are also those who would say that this piece of jewelry has a deeper religious significance--as an icon of Antichrist!

Posted by jat at 12:01 AM | Permalink

There might be a gang in the midst of them.  The picture below is part of an article from Georgia on how police identify gang members.  Among other things, the police look for tattoos and religious jewelry.

Uh oh.

Posted by jat at 12:14 AM | Permalink

San Mateo is Spanish for "Saint Matthew," but that's not the reason for this post.  San Mateo is also a city in California where I would be this weekend if I still lived on the West Coast.  "Why?," you ask.

Maker Faire!

Maker Faire is Geekapalooza--a gathering wholly dedicated to DIY tech.  Robots, crafts, animation:  what's not to like?

And of course, there's also jewelry--most notably, a fashion show marking the debut of Black Box Nation, the new venture by Emily Albinski and Diana Eng.  I had a chance to talk with Diana about BBN a little while ago, and what she has planned sounds amazing, not just in regard to their designs but the broader aim of building a tech-oriented design community.

To the left is the signature fuse necklace designed by Emily and worn by Diana on Project Runway.  And below (right):  a knit jacket with ruffles that use the Fibonacci series to create truly divine proportion!

Posted by jat at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Did Jesus truly come back from the dead?  Did he leave behind any children as heirs? 

The Da Vinci Code has made these questions once again fodder for popular debate.  Coincidentally (ha ha ha), religious scholars, partisans and pundits have all been happy to oblige. 

Of the books now flooding the market that challenge the traditional orthodox view, perhaps the most intriguing comes from a respected religious scholar who was researching these issues years before Dan Brown asked his wife how to spell Botticelli.  In The Jesus Dynasty, Professor James Tabor examines the historic ministry of Jesus not only in light of textual criticism, but the latest in biblical archaeology. 

And here's where it gets explosive.

Among other things (such as explaining why the most important person going by the name "Pantera" may not be Dimebag Darrell) Tabor offers a lengthy argument that the bones which once lay in the ossuaries of Jerusalem's Talpiot tomb may have been those of family of Christ.

As in mother Mary & Joseph, brothers Matthew & James, and . . .

well . . .

um . . .

don't shoot the messenger . . .

Jesus and his son Jude.

Intrigued?  Read a provocative chapter here, and the NT Gateway rounds up some early reviews. The book has much more, including a picture of the as yet unexplained angle-and-circle symbol on the face of the Talpiot tomb, its mysterious tri-skulled layout and Tabor's theory as to why Jesus may have wanted a flesh-and-blood heir.   

Of course, as Tabor himself concedes, much of this is just hypothesis inferred from incomplete evidence.  We as of yet can't prove that any tomb once held the bones of Jesus or his begotten son.  

And were you to ask the folks at Empty Tomb Design, we never will.

Posted by jat at 12:11 AM | Permalink

Posted by jat at 11:43 AM | Permalink

Suzanne Sataline, who wrote the fun article on the atheist who sold his soul on eBay to a Christian, has a new article in today's Wall Street Journal on a Pennsylvania church that communicates its message through drama and tattoos.