I suppose I never thought that one day I would actually be older than Jesus ever was when he walked the earth. Age shouldn't mean a single thing when considered against the backdrop of the ever-widening trajectory of all time and space. But the symbolic age of 33 will haunt me from now till I reach the eternal space, as I today I have moved past it. As Sean reminded me, the "Death Threat"/Jesus Year Birthday Card, is still appropriate (an image of a black cross, presented through the mail to him on his 33rd birthday, from the monks of Portsmouth Abbey, where he spent several years when half that sacred age). But isn't every age we all experience sacred? Who am I to have dwelt on 27, because of all the musical geniuses who left us at that age, and who am I to compare myself to the Son of Man, who spent thirty-three years in a physical body, to teach us how to love? It's a stretch.
I am finishing up a body of 33 small paintings, done over the course of this past year, which taken altogether was a extraordinary one. From the land of the rising sun to the ninth ward, from a spiritual shipwreck to the conception of a new life, this year was good, so good, more than good, and I'm praying to hold onto the threads of it and to weave them like seeds of life and light, into the fabric of the next. The one that starts today.
