Sally Thomas

On the other hand, if you’re interested in what an icon is, this might be a good place to start. [Rating: . . . . Continue Reading »

This is not an icon. It is a curiosity. Why is it a curiosity? It is a curiosity because it purports to be an icon, yet its subjects are dogs. Oh, and a cat. Now, the cat will tell you that icons depict holy personages, and dogs are not holy personages. The dogs will ask you what’s for dinner. . . . . Continue Reading »

Recently some friends of mine were discussing the misapplication of the word “heroic” to denote efforts which people ought to make simply as a matter of course. Staying married, for example, is not an act of heroism, at least in most cases, yet you read in the tabloids — that is, . . . . Continue Reading »

You have to wish that all our imperfect human vision were as nearly sublime as this.The market for religion’s material culture is a strange place indeed. It’s full of things which make you ask: Why is this for sale? Who buys it? There are things, for instance, packaged as manifestations . . . . Continue Reading »

My friend Nathaniel comments that he’d like to see a “Jael With Her Tent Peg,” but I think that’s expecting a level of biblical literalism, to coin a phrase which was already in existence and didn’t really need coining . . . Anyway, you tell me. Barbie: Sarah, from the . . . . Continue Reading »

Kevin Heekin, of Heekin Pewter, is the popular guy at any crafts fair. While their mothers are off buying candles, boys line up at Heekin’s booth not only to admire his pewter figurines, but to buy them — at three to five dollars each, his unpainted figures are maybe the only thing at . . . . Continue Reading »

. . . ways of not playing out in quite the way you’d envisioned sometimes. At least, that’s one way to put it. A friend once told me the story of a play he’d been in, or seen, or heard about, or had a friend who had a friend who had heard this story from someone who was in it, or . . . . Continue Reading »

You realize that while you were experiencing this lifetime of Catholic practice, I was on the Junior High Sunday School Retreat at Panacea Falls. My technical and canonical knowledge about relics would not fill a thimble. Still, there are two in my house. Both of them came to us on the day we were . . . . Continue Reading »

Landscape artist Martha Kelly — who, totally coincidentally you understand, happens to be married to my brother — has for years been painting the trees, fields and sky of the Southern lowlands we both call home. Last fall, however, she began working on a series of oil-on-paper images . . . . Continue Reading »

And today we have a very special treat from Judi and the Seventh Congregational Dancers: an interpretation-in-movement of our scripture lesson, taken from 1 Kings 14. Starring Raymond as Rehoboam (with Raymond, Jr., as Abijam his son) — Darren as Shishak, King of Egypt —Judi as . . . . Continue Reading »