Woke Up With Things on My Mind...

Sometimes things pop up in my head and I try to find a way to tie them together or at least get them down in this space so that maybe one day me or my editor (a person that does not exist yet) will go back and see a way that fits things in a place we might not have originally seen. So it was this morning I woke up thinking about a Baptist preacher, a beer party and a mosaic of the Last Judgment I saw and photographed in Prague. 

A couple of years ago, one Sunday morning I found myself in a Baptist church. Although now Catholic but raised a Baptist, not unusual. Let the legend say something like it was a family obligation, a civic duty or the plane was going down. The preacher was an old school guy but he had updated his message for modern behaviors very nicely. I don't recall the verse he preached on but he said if there was a new restaurant in town he would not want to go to it if it was not good. None of us would. We ask each other "have you eaten at the new place? Was it good?"  We want to know before we get there and I won't forget his inflection, cadence and the way he emphasized the word good by seeming to add a few extra letters such as n and u to drag the word out so we knew that good was important. 

Back when I first began to participate in facebook someone invited me to "like" a group they had put together based on a beer party that took place in the early 1970s. Without facebook event invites I was not even aware it took place at the time and was too young to drive out to the location although I will admit that had I known of such I would have been very curious. The reason I was asked to be a group member was that  I did get to know some of the principles involved in this beer party thing. Even though I have not drank a beer in over 20 years people seem a bit surprised even today that I have not been drinking but I'll let you study on that. At about the same time as all this was organizing I was forming a facebook group at my local church and I do remember being a bit jealous that the beer party had more likes than a baited patch supposedly interested in the resurrection of Christ. Anyway time does tell and my group overtook the beer party and interest traveled far and wide. There was no money but there were compliments and publicity which really may lead to worse sins that anything that goes on at a beer party barring murder or occult practices. 

So speaking of party, Christ, and time we come to St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague and the mosaic on the side by the Golden Portal. It's a depiction by Venetian artists dating to the 1300s of the Last Judgement.

A quick history tells that the first church on this site replaced a pagan temple in 930. St. Vitus was chosen as a name because it kind of sounded like the same name the pagans had for their sun god and besides Good King Wenceslaus (yeah, that guy) had one of the Saint's arms. Hopefully this all went smooth for the pagans because I can see how if not explained properly there could be some misunderstandings with the relic business and with cultural misunderstanding there is war and so forth.    

It took 600 years to build this church with some work still being done in the 1920s. Here you see the Golden Portals where the Royals entered. With a lot of current discussion most of it at beer parties about the lack of God in life I could see how it might be an effective technique to have the leaders of the country or anybody for that matter walk under and consider their judgment, not someone else's  at least once a week.  

Looks like good tattoo material. I have a large religious tattoo on my back so no room for this but there is always my big head.  

My favorite part. The dead rise from the ground on the last judgment. Lots of folks want you to be scared of this but as I say barring murder and too much enthusiasm for ghost stories I will bet that most of my friends, even those at beer parties get to do this. My Heaven has a pretty wide gate and I want you to notice that all coffins are open in this photo. None remain closed so remember, as I have stated before, everything means something.   

Looks like musicians will have a gig. Glad I play a horn. I don't know where you are going to plug in your amp or set up the drums. Oh wait, if you get to dance around with a tambourine can I swap with you for a while? 

And finely notice that the rich people are standing on the ground. It could have been a burning in Hell kind of scene painted here but hey, they rode till the real King came and now they should see that walking is not so bad. The musicians are flying in the air and the dead some of which include, as statics demonstrate, people who after drinking at that old beer party went on to drink themselves completely out of existence are all going to be OK. I think you will be too.     

So if you are wondering, the last judgment is going to be like a beer party. It will be good! 

So if you are wondering all this material including photos produced  and property of me. 

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