Silencing The Scream

In an age where anxiety is rampant, despite all our developments and achievements, Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream almost acts as a society’s emblem. No wonder it sold for $120m at a Sotheby’s auction in New York last year.

Now I’m wondering: How did we get to the point where such a painting reflects our underlying mood? As I said, despite all our developments and achievements. What is lacking when we seem to have it all?

And although I absolutely adore the painting, I find the price a bit too steep. How is it possible that somebody has so much money (In excess I might add. His/her other living expenses are apparently covered and he/she has a little something lying around to invest somewhere), while millions on the planet do not know where the next meal will come from? If ever. What is wrong with this picture? Pardon the pun!

Edvard Munch was himself a troubled man. Suffering from insomnia, he would often book himself an overnight couchette to Oslo, as he found sleeping on trains easier. With the latest price his painting fetched, he could have bought himself a whole lullaby train as remedy. But somehow I do not think that all the money in the world is a solution for many of our most intimate and devastating demons.

Photograph by Ken Havard

On a totally different note, but on the same subject: I cannot help but think of an Olive Thrush every time I see The Scream. It is such a hysterical bird. They tend to regularly help themselves to the dog food on the stoep. When I suddenly round the corner and surprise them in the process, it is with shrieks and wings flapped in panic that they fly away. Were they humans their actions would have been something in the vein of: “Help! Help! Murder! Assault with the intent to kill! Rape! Call the police! Call the ambulance! Just call! Help! The end is nigh!” And a posture pretty much the same as that of the figure in the painting. Often I shout after them: “Oh, get a life!” before picking up the scattered pellets.

Is there a moral to my musings? I think I want to say that contemplative spirituality helps me to appreciate the painting or any painting for that matter, discover its interconnectedness to so many other things in life and to find in this spirituality the deep remedy for that same anxiety that I myself so often struggle with. In contemplative spirituality everything belongs and gets a certain beauty.

Humor as well. It was a cartoon that started this, remember.

George

Vanuit Die Restory - Gesprekke Tussen Reisgenote (110)

Die Week Na 'n Dood Sebastien op sy gelukkigste - by water, besig om vis te vang Die Gesprek Elemente Uit Die Gesprek Musiek Sebastien het altyd gesê, "I like old music.' Hy het. Billy Joel se Piano Man was vir baie lank die ringtone op sy foon. Dat ons só gelukkig kan wees, dankie Sebas. George & Matilda

Vanuit Die Restory / From The Restory (135)

Onlangse Oorsig / Recent Summary Foto's Van Onlangse Gebeure / Pictures Of Recent Events 'n Huis opgeknap en geverf met 'n nuwe badkamer, die koms van lente en reën, retreats, die CMR se breimarathon, aanbied en afsluiting van die Verfrissingskursus in geestelike begeleiding, bywoon van ons kleindogter Ariana se gradeplegtigheid ("Nee Oupa, dis 'n gradige plegtigheid!") voordat sy volgende jaar grootskool toe gaan. A house renovated and painted with a new bathroom, the arrival of spring and rain, retreats, the CMR's knitting marathon, presenting and finishing the Refresher course in spiritual guidance, attending our granddaughter Ariana's graduation before she goes to big school next year. Klank / Sound Die klank van sagte reën na die storm is op baie vlakke nou gepas. The sound of gentle rain after the storm is now appropriate on many levels. Met ons liefde, soos altyd. With our love, as always. George & Matilda

Vanuit Die Restory - Gesprekke Tussen Reisgenote (120)

Skuld as Motivering Die Gesprek Elemente Uit Die Gesprek ~ ❖ ~ "I am convinced that guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the defenses of the False Self as it is shocked at its own poverty — the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, due to our mistaken images of God, exactly what has happened!)." Richard Rohr ~ ❖ ~ "It is about as hard to absolve yourself of your own guilt as it is to sit in your own lap. Wrongdoing sparks guilt sparks wrongdoing ad nauseam, and we all try to disguise the grim process from both ourselves and everybody else. In order to break the circuit we need friends before whom we can put aside the disguise, trusting that when they see us for what we fully are, they won't run away screaming w...

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