Sepia Saturday: Nap & The Little Colonel

Nap & The Little Colonel

True, Easter is the Holiest of days in the church calendar, but what would it be without all the darling toddlers wearing their adorable little clothes, balancing baskets of Easter eggs, and hugging their new stuffed toys? For today's Sepia Saturday, I offer this cherished image of my husband and his much loved Nap. My mother-in-law gave me this photo during the year that he served in Vietnam. It was taken and processed and developed by his father who was by profession a medical photographer. My best guess is that the photo was taken on Easter of 1947. The Colonel would have been three years old. He was actually born on Easter Sunday of 1944. Imagine the combination of joy and uncertainty at the birth of a first born child just two months before D-Day! Most assuredly, it was the joy that prevailed. And yes, we still have Nap. He is safely stowed away in a cedar chest, but usually appears on Easter mornings wearing a new pale blue ribbon tied in a big bow around his neck.

May Christ's love and sacrifice and the Miracle of the Resurrection

prevail in your spirit this Easter tide.

Carrying the Cross by Lorenzo Lotto

Yesterday, my husband and I visited Atlanta's High Museum. It was his birthday, and he especially wanted to see the The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army exhibit. That was grand. However, an added bonus was the Louvre Atlanta: The Louvre and the Masterpiece. This title is the third part in the third year of the Louvre Atlanta exhibit at the High (family name, so there is not a Low Museum). In the masterpiece discussion, it is described as a lost and found. It mostly likely had hung in a church for some two to three hundred years until someone moved it. Having been laid aside, wrapped in a cloth in the church for more than a hundred years, it was discovered obscured in dust and grime. Once it was cleaned and restored, it was recognized to be a lost masterpiece by Lorenzo Lotto. It belongs to the Louvre and hangs in the same gallery with the Mona Lisa when it is not touring.

I stood before this painting quite some time. I studied it closely and played the corresponding narrative for it twice. The image I am using here is from the official Louvre website.

Reflecting on the history of the painting reminded me that we often allow the perfect and beautiful and sacred aspects of our lives to become obscured with the dust and grime of the years. We may set them aside and even forget them. Easter is about renewing, refreshing, and reclaiming ourselves and all that is good about the human experience---about the profound and mystical meaning of Carrying the Cross.