Self discovery

Since I have been singing the Sacred Harp, discussed in several previous entries, I have been claiming an affinity with religious sentiment prepared to gaze on the dark side of existence. Now I see that I was just seeking a little balance to counteract the sometimes remorseless commitment to positive thinking in the communities where I spend most of my time. It is possible to have too much of a dark thing. It is possible to walk into one Portuguese church and have too much of a dark thing.

Talk about death and glory. Back when Portugal was fabulously rich, it seems that everyone who was anyone set up a splendidly ornamented church, dripping with gold, showing as much suffering and death as could be be crammed into the space. If you gaze around to rest your eyes from graphic crucifixions and martyredoms, you might find a statue of a hearty looking saint on top of an altar, but if your eyes drift down they might be assaulted again by a distressingly realistic representatation of a dead body underneath the altar, just in case you had temporarily forgotten that you will die soon, probably in some horrible way (my cold is almost better thanks, if you are interested) That's why I was quite excited this morning to find a small side chapel, in the private church of the Dukes of this town, that had only one token, quite discreet, crucifix. All the other images and statues were of saintly folk going about their celestial business in a perfectly cheerful and unmolested fashion.

Anyway, this leads me to my theory about why there are no Goths to be seen round and about here. Not much differentiation from your parents' generation to be found in death and gloom here. Feminism and modern art are much more the thing.