Easter candy

Well I guess we'll have to continue settling for bunnies, since Chocolate Jesus isn't going to be shown after all.

I would write about this, because what a freaking awesome story to write about, but I am way behind on work. So I'm going to be Lazy Blogger and link to this blog that pretty much says everything I could think of (and a loooot more).

I should say, though, that I find the work beautiful and not offensive and its about damn time somebody admitted Jesus had a penis and wasn't white chocolate. Well maybe caramel.

Speaking of such art, we've gotten a few decent pics of our St. Francis (painted in chocolate, caramel, and Twix wrappers) since we're about to submit it to a gallery. What's interesting in this piece (done by one of John's students) is the same stuff that is interesting about the other: the juxtaposition of sticky sweet substances, cheap throwaway empty calories, with a person whose life was about real, solid substance, about finding what was real and valuable for the long haul.

But more than that (which was the artist's statement), John saw in it a redemption of those materials. Like when Johnny Cash sings a Duran Duran song, suddenly it has new meaning. When St. Francis is painted out of chocolate (or Jesus sculpted from it), who he is somehow elevates the materials beyond what they were. The chocolate doesn't demean these men, they lift the chocolate to a higher level of meaning. They give it worth. They make it valuable, beautiful, and real.

Which is pretty much what God does for any of us. Here's Francis: