I remember learning about Romanticism in high school and being struck to realize that it has nothing to do with conventional ideas of love and romance. Romanticism is a movement that reaches not only the visual arts but also literature & music. It's a movement that shines light on the need to take care of the underdog, the downtrodden, the suffering.
Like Victor Hugo's magnificent literary work: Les Miserables ... where the Bishop tells the authorities to not arrest Jean Valjean because the silver found on him is silver that the Bishop gave him, not silver that he stole. Jean Valjean can't believe this grace given to him by the Bishop because he did in fact steal the silver. And the Bishop says to Jean Valjean ... take the silver and rise up and succeed. God. I weep every time I think about that exchange.
Paintings by French Romantics like Gericault and Delacroix exude the passion that they felt ... particularly regarding oppression based on class. Their works show breathtaking uprisings of a downtrodden people who overcome class oppression.
Speaking of the downtrodden. Have you seen the devastation and the havoc that Hurricane Harvey has caused on the people of Houston? The images of the suffering are heart-wrenching. These images are available to all ... including Joel Osteen, head of a megachurch in Houston that has not been flooded and that could house and aid thousands of people ... only if he opens the doors.
But Osteen and his team members have shown their true colors. And they look nothing like Jean Valjean's Bishop. The doors of the megachurch will remain closed, he said, but dollars will be accepted through his website to provide aid.
There ARE churches that open doors to help the downtrodden. That's part of the conceptual reason why churches are allowed to collect money without paying taxes. Because they're supposed to help. For free. And that's why I used to wear a cross around my neck. But I took it off in my 20s when I realized that most crosses on necks reflect closed doors, closed hearts of the greedy who use tax-free money to build shiny things that belong more to the over-the-top Rococo art movement of extravagance and jet-set life of the Osteens and nothing to do with Romanticism. They turn scripture into cliches of privilege to help them sleep ... like "we aren't perfect, just forgiven."
Maybe one day I'll wear that cross again ... when I feel that #fakechristianity no longer has a stranglehold on Christianity.
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