Journal

Grains are among the first crops to be harvested, so we will begin with a few of the traditions of grain harvesting. Wheat and corn are often harvested during the hot days of July. Hay is cut and left drying in bales over the fields. The folk traditions of yore celebrated this day with baking new loafs of bread from the fresh harvest, dancing, feasting, and even bale-jumping sport. 

The ancients were very aware of the sun, stars, and shifts in the earth's movements. Their lives and agrarian livelihoods were highly dependent upon their ability to understand the land, sun, and skies. As such, they created a calendar of sorts to mark each season with action and celebration. Eventually, with the rise of Christendom, these festival days also took on religious meaning.

My grandmother used to talk about the May Day celebrations that they would have at school when she was a young girl. Stories of May Day queens and crowns, poesies, dancing around the maypole and with flower boughs were some of her favorite to share with me while we worked in the garden together in the early days of spring. It seemed almost mythical to me, as May Day was not something we celebrated or talked about much at all during my years. Sometime in the last century, May Day stopped being a widely celebrated holiday in America. There are pockets around the country that still celebrate in small towns, but it is quickly becoming a forgotten holiday.

This year for Holy Week, we came across an old master whose art is new to us: James Tissot. Tissot had spent much of his career depicting fashionable scenes of London and Paris, but in his later years, his focus returned to the deep Catholic roots of his upbringing, creating 365 gouache paintings of the life of Jesus Christ.

As we pored over the collection, we were deeply touched by the intricacy and empathy in his scenes. It feels as if Tissot had pondered a lot on what those in the Savior's inner social circles would have seen, heard, and felt as they walked with him through the many experiences described in the New Testament. Considering the words of Emerson above, Tissot must have lifted his heart to the highest imaginations of the story of Jesus Christ to have so artfully conceived his story as paintings.