Random Thoughts on the Bible, Art and Lent.

I use iGoogle as my home page. There are three columns on the webpage: the center column is news and email, the right is the list of stocks in which I am losing money, and the left column is the time and the "gadget," The Bible and Art.

I know many readers have an interest in the arts, whether it be music, film, or one of the many others, and a few in religion. And that some find religion specious at best, others downright repugnant. At the ripe old age of 55, with as many mistakes that I have made and flaws that I have, I am no man's judge or critic.

I do consider myself fortunate to believe, even imperfectly, in the earthly reality of certain religious persons and the revealed stories about them. And because of that, to the arts related to those persons. Like this Caravaggio, Ecce Homo or Behold the Man, a work that deserves some contemplation during Lent.

And fortunate to be a participant in 6,000 years of Jewish, Roman, Greek and now Christian history and culture. I can, as they say, "enter the conversation," a privilege I never forget. And to consider the truth or falsity of the same propositions that men for thousands of years have been considering.

Mozart's Requiem, Shakespeare's King Lear, Beethoven's Ninth, make me think that maybe Dostoevsky was right when he wrote, "Beauty Can Save the World." It is the magnet that attracts everyone. It is Goodness and Truth in the flesh, and it transforms even a casual observer. To bring the thought back to this weblog's theme, to observe a fine meal is one thing, to partake in it is another.

None of this truth or beauty exists in vacuo, without a culture; something else I never forget.

I add these photos of art because I like them, so there you have it -- that and a quarter will . . .