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23 March 2007
T.T F. S. M. I. P. F. = thank the flying spaghetti monster it's Photo Friday! The theme this week is Sacred Things.
My interpretation is rather loose. ≡ Click to see image ≡
This photo was taken from the top of the Haleakala volcano in Maui, Hawaii. It was the last day of a chapel choir tour I'd organised, and we'd driven up to see the sun rise. After the dawn had broken, and everyone had applauded, my choristers (a few of whom are in the photo) spontaneously broke into an impromptu rendition of a gradual by Anton Bruckner which we had been singing in our concerts:
Locus iste a Deo factus est, inaestimabile sacramentum, irreprehensibilis est.
This was made by God, a priceless sacred place; it is beyond reproach.
Here's an old one, from 10/8/2001. I was walking across the east plaza of the Capitol, and saw this mannekin, with fake, out-of-scale sheep, and many small flags of foreign countries up on the Capitol steps. Oh, yes, there was loud religious music playing, too. As far as I could tell, though, no one was attending to the display; it was totally without context, right up there on the steps of the Capitol. I've never found out what the hell it was about.
Sorry for the width, but this is a panoramic shot of Kilauea caldera that I stitched together. Just before the last "seam" on the right, you can just barely see a papaya and some flowers as an offering to Pele perched on an outcropping above the Halema`uma`u crater. The scale is hard to appreciate--the crater is a half-mile across and 300 feet deep.
≡ Click to see image ≡
A monk explains the Nativity story to visitors in St. Patrick's Cathedral, NYC, Dec. 27th.
≡ Click to see image ≡
Some nuns ice skate in Bryant Park.≡ Click to see image ≡
St. Patrick's altar from the front... ≡ Click to see image ≡
...and from the back. Behind and to the right of the water bottles is a crypt where the former bishops of the NY diocese are ...buried? (I'm not sure what the word for "remains preserved in a crypt" is.)