Judas #2 & Malibu morning picture of the day - Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

Today's picture makes me think of that old song "Lavender blue, dilly, dilly. Lavender blue ..."

... because that's sure the hell that I gots! Pretty no? Here's another view.

Dry brush strokes

If God were a painter, it looks like he was using the "dry brush" technique in today's subject. Dry brush is when you load your brush with enough paint to make a mark, not enough to cover all of the surface, leaving some unpainted places within the brushstroke. When you do this kind of move, it's always serendipity because you don't know what kind of pattern your brush will leave. Definitely not a technique for the micromanager-OCD artist.






Just as a small parting lesson today, if you're looking for a religious excuse to skip work today, why not celebrate the feast day of St. Judas (aka Jude or Thaddeus)? It's today, October 28.

Who is/was St. Judas you may ask? Why does he have so many nicknames? And wasn't he a bad guy? He dipped his bread in the sauce at The Last Supper, something your mother told you was low-class? Just a notch above picking up your plate and licking it. Oh, and there was the whole betrayal of Jesus with a kiss thing too.

Well, there ya go. There were actually TWO Judases in J.C.'s inner circle. That's why he changed his name, or others changed it for him (like having the last name Hitler or Stalin today).


Here's a typical picture of him. And no, having the flame above your head was NOT how ancient cartoonists showed someone having a new idea prior to the invention of the lightbulb.




Otherwise we would interpret this scene by El Greco as some early corporate brainstorming session where everybody is contributing some kind of innovative idea.

No, this little get-together was Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Judas #2 always made a point to wear his "little flame hat" to prove he had true Spirit cred, since #1 died (by suicide) BEFORE this party happened when they passed them out.

Sadly, the hat trick and the name change didn't really help. Nobody really enlists his saintly super-power of post-mortem intercessionary prayer because everybody mixes him up with Judas #1, such that St. Jude is the the Patron of Lost Causes. "Wow. You have a problem with what? Shee. Fugeddaboudid. You may as well pray to St. Jude ..."

And, being a writer of stories that only a few people read, I really like the guy because of that. He labored in virtual anonymity, doing what needed to be done, unhindered by the cult of personality that attached to guys like Peter, Paul, and Mary. "Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea ..." Excuse me. I digressed. Age...

His face must have been
REALLY dirty that day.

What's that? Why is he holding a medallion? Because it's HEAVY around your neck, dummy! Some think it's a conflation of the "Image of Edessa" told in the non-Bible story where someone wrote to Jesus and asked him to come heal a servant. Jesus was not able to get away just then, so he put his head in a cloth to imprint the image of his face into it, and then he sent a guy named "Thaddeus" to go deliver it, whereupon the sick person would be healed when it was shown to them.

Boss! We could start
our own religion
with this thing!

Since "Thaddeus" was one of the names that "Judas #2" goes by, tradition has put the two of them together, and so pictures of St. Jude typically have him holding some kind of Christ facial image. Of course, nobody really knows these things for certain, but it seems reasonable to me.

So, maybe taking the Feast Day of St. Jude off is a lost cause, but take a lesson from the man, who kept plugging away doing good things despite being associated with negativity he had nothing to do with.

Have a wonderful Wednesday.





Love,
Pops