Op success

Up very early today, to take Clare to the Heath hospital by 7.30am for her first cataract operation, after a six month wait during which she was given no indication of when it might take place. In the end, a couple of weeks notice was given, but it meant we could make no long term plans until we knew the date for certain. We'll have a similar indeterminate wait until the second eye is done.

Just after lunch she rang for me to collect her. Half an hour later she was home eating scrambled egg on toast, and learning how to cope with the discomfort of disrupted vision. Now she's discovering that her distance vision in the repaired eye is better than it has been for years. Her brain has to adjust to the disparity to overcome double vision. By trial and error she's learning which assemblage of specs works best for her. Already the prospect of being able to return to driving is enough cheer to see her through the recovery period of caution.

With supper preparation taken care of, I went to my group meeting. Rufus, one of the students gave a presentation on a variety of different images of crucifixion. This was sparked by a discovery he'd made of an old nineteenth century Bavarian crucifix broken and abandoned in college store room. He took it home and did a very good repair and restoration job on it. He also researched its origins on the web, and was able to tell us about Mayer of Munich the craftsman in whose workshop it originated. Then by way of contrast, he showed us many different pictures of traditional and contemporary works of art.

It struck me afterwards that the different angles of interpretation that lay behind passion portrayals resemble the practice of lectio divina in meditating on scripture. The Gospel narratives are lengthy, charged with attention grabbing moments that rouse the spirit and kindle imagination. This is true whether the aim is prayer and contemplation or to register an interpretation or comment provoking discussion about meaning and relevance. The production of art on religious themes is far from being the exclusive province of devout believers. It attracts skeptics, agnostics, atheists, self-publicising controversialists and iconclasts too. This story has special power to get people thinking about it. And that may happen in ways which not everyone is comfortable with, even in a theological college there are those who'd prefer that religious imagery of a certakept out of the public realism and confined to private imagination.