Christ Child

Last I would like to mention the interesting case of two bronze statues. One, Man with a Beard, a handsome Renaissance bronze statue was owned by the Louvre in Paris, whereas the other, Boy with a Ball, was owned by the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (8). These two statues were remarkably similar in style, and it was suspected that at some time these may have been part of one artifact. Stylistic analysis, however, was not sufficient to make the final decision. X-ray fluorescence study of the two objects showed identical chemical composition which can happen only if they were poured from the same batch of metal. The analysis also showed that by composition the artifacts were closer to brass than to bronze. The group was reunited and is now known as St. Christopher Carrying the Christ Child with the Globe of the World. The statue illustrates the legend in which St. Christopher carried the Christ Child across a river. 

Many years later, after Fritz Haber s death, his sister Else warned a biographer that it would be a mistake to overemphasize her brother s Jewishness. Jewish ritual was absent from the Haber household. Yom Kippur was less important than Christmas—though tree, gifts, and meals were the center of the holiday, not the Christ child. 

A phenomenon reoccurring every few years in the equatorial part of the Pacific ocean, characterized by movement of a mass of warm water eastward towards the west coast of South America. This change in ocean conditions has long been recognized in Peru, where sailors noticed that an unusual counter-current appeared in certain years around the area of the port of Paita. They named this current El Nino - the Christ Child - because it usually appeared immediately after Christmas. It was also known that the appearance of this current coincided with different weather conditions, particularly increased rainfall and sometimes flooding. 

Introspection, the third important characteristic of Calvinism, was also part of Boerhaave s life. Like all Calvinists of his time, he searched for the signs of election (the tme faith in Christ, a child-like fear of God, sadness because of sin, and longing for justice) in his life. The need for searching his life and conscience made Boerhaave feel uncomfortable when realising that he was so busy that he did not have time to meditate on death and consequently on his state before God. He wrote in a letter to Bassand ... 

The great crossroads that was the plan s point of departure has been variously interpreted as a symbol of Christ s cross or an Amazonian bow. Costa, however, referred to it as a monumental axis, the same term that Le Corbusier used to describe the center of many of his urban plans. Even if the axis represented a small attempt to assimilate Brasilia in some way to its national tradition, it remained a city that could have been anywhere, that provided no clue to its own history, unless that history was the modernist doctrine of ciam. It was a state-imposed city invented to project a new Brazil to Brazilians and to the world at large. And it was a state-imposed city in at least one other sense inasmuch as it was created to be a city for civil servants, many aspects of life that might otherwise have been left to the private sphere were minutely organized, from domestic and residential matters to health services, education, child care, recreation, commercial outlets, and so forth. 

A supernova reputedly occurs in Cassiopeia every three hundred years on average. Each new star that appears in Cassiopeia symbolizes the birth of a new Christ or Child of Light who will be manifest on earth. 

In Of the Child with the Bird at the Bush (xxxi), a child actor again figures in a chase of sorts, but this time the child s intention is to save the flying creature from harm. Here, the child-speaker is a type of Christ, eager to coax the bird to safety and away from thorns, storms, kites and snares, and offering instead warmth, good food, silks, occupation and a palace ... 

How lovely a proposal, to teach music not yet imagined And yet, in the end, the bird flies away, preferring danger or perhaps not understanding the child s call. The comparison perhaps a Httle heavy-handedly identifies the child as Christ and the bird as sinners. The bird s own songs are foolish Toys / Which to Destruction lead the way (B G, p. 235). The poem concludes ... 

The Arguments this Child doth chuse. To draw to him a Bird thus wild. Shews Christ famihar Speech doth use. To make s to him be reconciled. 

---