Well, thank-you, someone.
Perhaps, someone drunk. Angry. Someone who’s had it and is not going to take it anymore and throws Mary in the pond.
Sometimes, six days before Christmas, you just go to the pond near your house before a blizzard and you find the image that sums up what it feels like to no longer be a Catholic.
It’s my creche.
Do you think I can construct it in front of the Town Hall?
©Pat Coakley 2009
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
This is a very arresting image. A fallen Mary that may well represent the feelings of many toward organized religions of all sorts. Too bad it was most likely done in a fit of anger or a drunken prank as you suggest, rather than as a thoughtful statement of belief. Construct it in front of the town hall and you will learn how far religious freedom and tolerance extends, even in Massachusetts. Better to just enjoy a snow day, and leave fallen Mary at the pond to absorb a few religious lessons from nature. Perhaps she will be better for it in the new year.
Hey, Don. What I’ll remember about this image is that the usual reasons I go to the pond…light…was not the draw. Everything was gray before the storm but I’d been having back problems so hadn’t been able to lift all my camera stuff so this was the first day of just being able to lift the bag! I was delighted to go anywhere! And, voila!
How big is that thing?
Why do you think it’s Mary?
I’m just full of questions tonight.
Ross, because who else would it be? Tonja Harding?? About a foot long mary dog, please. O, I’m bad this morning.
Wow, what an amazing photo. I actually first saw it through my tiny page preview window that firefox brings up when I mouse over a link. This picture sucked me in at first glance even though it was only one inch tall. Maybe it’s because I am a fallen Catholic also. I think the protestant religions really goofed when they gave up icons. Icons hold huge power over my weak human mind.
It is so true about icons, Dave. The music, Gregorian Chant, which is iconic in it’s own way, still gets me despite all my “fallen-ness”.
I cannot describe how intensely I feel about this photo. In-effing-credible. A broken virgin staring at a broken light.
You know, vesper de Vil, some images make themselves. This was one of them. I like how you described it.
It’s got wings … it might be tinkerbell … or some other famous angel from the Bible. Upper case “B” so people don’t think I think it’s Farrah Fawcett or Kate Jackson or something … their from the lowercase bible “b” TV Guide.
I thought if it were really big then probably drunk people were involved, but if it’s only a foot long … well C.S.I. is going to have a tough time with this one.
Ross, I think a virgin birth qualifies for “wings”, don’t you think? No one would confuse Charlie’s Angels with virgin births, either so it’s a much simpler explanation. C.S.I…..I know people love it. Too icky for me. Yep, I said “icky”.
Good shot.
It’s funny, but even though I’m a lapsed Catholic (I prefer to say I’m recovered rather than reborn), I still think that most Christians don’t mean harm and I don’t like to see icons of any faith vandalised.
Then again perhaps it’s some iconoclast’s idea of an economic stimulus srategy, because if icons weren’t getting smashed up all the time there be less of an icon industry and the iconoclasts would run out of things to smash.