It's his birthday, so they say, while we all know that it isn't really.I'm not much of a Christian except that I would claim to be more Christian than most self-proclaimed Christians, and this picture of Jesus is one of my favorite possessions. The paperboard Jesus is attired in actual red velvet and pure white linen against an ecru satin background. The nimbus is a circle of real golden beads. That's gold thread edging on his coat and at the neck of his linen undergarment. It is absolutely exquisite, perfect, beautifully crafted. It's barely imaginable that it was mass-produced but it must have been.
It hung on the wall of a Jewish friend's shack-like home. I said how much I liked it; she lifted it from a nail and gave it to me. "He's my cousin, you know," she said. "Could be ... same genetics, all that ... you take good care of him, okay?" She'd paid 50-cents for it at a yard sale.
Thank you Phyllis. You gave me a treasure.
