Symbol
Gina recently gave me a larger picture of Alfred, now hanging in a special place. It’s the family’s best picture of him, and it is said that the dead live on through us and our memories and the things we do to honor them. When I was a boy many southern towns had a statue of a Confederate general in the square, a similar notion; your hero lives forever by being honored in such a way. In our age of political sensitivities some of those statues may have been pulled down as the statue of JoePa was quickly removed from its place of honor at Beaver Stadium.
At my seminary there was a statue of Martin Luther sitting, and it was tradition for the juniors to splash Luther with paint and for the middlers or seniors to prevent that happening.
One who commuted daily from Harrisburg, I never got into the close community that characterizes seminary life, but I do recall the excitement when dawn broke on Luther painted. Seems to me that every Lutheran seminary has a statue of Luther, but the one at Gettysburg is said to be the only statue of Luther sitting.
Painting the SAE lion was a big deal at UFla in the mid-1950s too; another symbol, both the lion and the ongoing determination both to paint it and to keep it from getting splashed. Our KA house had a portrait of Robert E. Lee over the mantle in the living room and an oversize Confederate battle flag always hanging over the front door, more symbols. Laws of the Kappa Alpha Order have since forbidden display of the CSA flag as well as forbidding wearing Confederate uniforms for the springtime Old South Ball; but apparently they still have the portrait of General Lee as the symbol of honor, courtesy, kindness, consideration, thoughtfulness.
The church is filled with symbols, a prominent one being a Cross on or over or behind the Communion table. There’s a baptismal font, customarily near the entryway symbolizing that baptism is the way into the Christian community and the way to the Altar. In the font, some churches have holy water that one may touch and make the sign of the cross to commemorate one’s baptism. An eagle lectern signals for sure that this is an Episcopal Church, or CofE in England. The bread and wine are our chief symbols, the Body of Christ, the Blood of Christ, a particularly powerful symbol when the bread is baked in someone’s home and brought lovingly at the Offertory as a warm, fragrant gift: taste and see that the Lord is good*. In some churches there’s no Cross, and when Episcopalians who have visited come back they often say with obvious astonishment, “There’s not a cross to be seen in that church.” And in some staunchly low-church Episcopal parishes, no candles, “too popish.” There are other symbols, though. Carrying a Bible to church is one.
This blog post started out to be about Hudson cars, because thinking of Alfred often reminds me that in the nineteen-teens my grandparents had a Hudson touring car, and Alfred, to this house, to the Hudson my family drove to Georgia when they moved away after Alfred died has strong symbolism for me.
My grandmother’s chicken crates strapped to the running boards and fenders of both the Hudson and the Model T Ford as they drove away from this house is a symbol of that era. My mental picture of it symbolizes the obedience of Abraham and Sarah leaving Haran at the command of the Lord, driving off into the dawn in their red BMW 3-series coupe with the chicken coop strapped to the car's top, and of course the sunroof closed.
Tom in +Time
And of course, this house is a symbol to me.
And of course, this house is a symbol to me.
* Psalm 34