Saturday, May 26, 2007

Pentecost stained glass window, Taizé Community


This Pentecost image is simple and is one of my favorites, partly because it is part of my religious journey as a young adult in the 1970s.

7 comments:

June Butler said...

Well, now, Jane, this is beautiful.

Edward said...

Fantastic! I'm going to steal this one for next year :-) I haven't made the Taizé pilgrimage yet, but I have this dream of a sabbatical (well, we can dream) where I go there (along with Iona, St. Gregory of Nyssa, etc., etc.).

W said...

Jane, I like this. We do a lot of Taize stuff at my church. Perhaps I will go someday.

I digress, but: My vegan ex-chaplain spoke of losing quite a bit of weight in Taize. The French don't eat as much meat as Americans, I think, but a lot of their food has meat, and it's difficult to find vegeterian or vegan stuff in France. The same can be said of the Chinese - we'll cook stuff with chicken stock even if there's no meat elsewhere. The idea among the Chinese is, if there's no meat, you're poor - even though, once again, we probably don't eat as much meat as Americans.

Jane R said...

Funny, Weiwen, but we had the opposite experience: my mother became a vegetarian (not vegan though, lacto-ovo) in France when I was growing up there (my parents are from the U.S. but were working in Paris for years), in the 60s, and she found it much easier to be a vegetarian in France than when she came back to the U.S. to visit family. The French had, as I once put it, respect for vegetables,there is an open market in every neighborhood of Paris at least twice a week and once a week in small towns, so fresh produce is always available, restaurants don't overcook vegetables and always have fruit available for dessert, and of course there was plenty of cheese and yogurt, both excellent. Things have since changed in the U.S. with the Alice Waters et al. restaurant revolution, the growth of awareness of healthy and sustainable and local food, etc. so it's much better now. My memory of Taizé in the 70s (last time I was there was the late 70s I think so it's been a while!) is that it was like summer camp, you ate what they gave you. And there is almost always meat at a meal in France (once a day at least) -- I imagine it's much harder to be a vegan, in any case, both there and in the U.S.

This stained-glass window from Taize is not so easy to see close up so I am enjoying this web-based view myself! They did and still do print beautiful postcards of it. I had one up on my wall for years. But I hadn't taken a look at this image in a long time. It's nice to live with it again.

Hope you are having a glorious Pentecost!

lauraj said...

Beautiful, Jane. Thanks.

johnieb said...

Your images are a continuing delight; thank you.

Jane R said...

You're welcome. Just sharing the work of others.