Just sing, little darling, sing with me

The song "Emmylou" is a tribute to country musicians past and present ~ Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, June Carter and Johnny Cash ~ sung by the Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit. It is just one of many highlights of this young group's recently-released second album, The Lion's Roar. 

The stirring harmonies are truly remarkable and the beautiful-but-woodsy songwriting sensibility of sisters Johanna (b. 1990) and Klara (b. 1993) Söderberg is pure delight.  "Emmylou" is an homage to the lone living survivor, Emmylou Harris, the namesake of the song's title.

"Emmylou" has been described as being about the power of singing with someone you love. The song's poignant chorus speaks lyrically:

"I'll be your Emmylou and I'll be your June,
And you'll be my Gram and my Johnny, too.
No, I'm not asking much of you,
Just sing, little darling, sing with me."

"Emmylou" is emotionally affecting and it's bound to bring a tear to fans of all music genres ~ not just country music. It is pure Americana.

The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light

The climax of Impressionism:
Claude Monet's The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light
(Oil on canvas, 1894)

An introduction: I enjoy sharing messages that combine sacred thought with secular wisdom. I think that the two play well together. There are so many different things that can tie together a good message about our faith, love and hope in God. And, there are plenty of good messages that are worth sharing. Sometimes, it just takes moving in the slow lane of life, observing, and enjoying the journey.

Today, I would like to share a few thoughts about Claude Monet's painting of The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light.


I love to go to art museums. They are a constant source of pleasure and inspiration. Often, after seeing a colorful work of art, I'll buy a picture postcard from a museum's gift shop to preserve the memory. Last week, I came across a picture postcard I bought last autumn of The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light. After seeing it, I knew I wanted to expand my knowledge and learn more about the cathedral and this remarkable Impressionist painting.


The Rouen Cathedral is a Roman Catholic Gothic cathedral in Rouen, in northwestern France. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Rouen and Normandy. Construction of the cathedral was originally begun in 1202. Over the next few centuries, it was victim of not only natural disasters, but also fire and war. The current Rouen Cathedral structure was completed in 1880.

(A detailed description of the cathedral can be found via Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouen_Cathedral.) 

During late winter of both 1882 and 1883, French Impressionist painter Claude Monet created a large series of paintings ~ more than 30 in all ~ of the Rouen Cathedral that depicted the same scene of the cathedral at different times of the day and year, reflecting changes in it and under different lighting conditions. Two of these paintings are in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; one is in the Getty Center museum in Los Angeles, Calif.; one is in the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade, Serbia; one is in a museum in Cologne, Germany; one is in a Rouen fine art museum; and five are in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. 

The painting accompanying this essay is Claude Monet's The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light. I had the opportunity to see this painting up close and personal during a visit to one of my favorite U.S. art museums, the Getty Center, in Los Angeles, in September 2011. I was most impressed by the color and beauty of Monet's painting of the Rouen Cathedral. Indeed, the cathedral series, exploring the color, light and form of a single subject at various times of the day represented Monet's most intense effort on a single site.

In a letter to describe The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light, Monet wrote: "Everything changes, even stone." According to the Getty Museum's website, Monet vividly conveyed "a wondrous combination of permanence and mutability as the sun daily transformed for the facade of Rouen Cathdral. Extending the building's encrusted stone surface to the richly varied impasto surface of his painting, he portrayed the cathedral perpetually re-emerging in the suffused light of early morning."

The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light has been called "the climax of Impressionism" and was later praised by masters such as Wassily Kandinsky and Roy Lichtenstein. Wrote Monet: "I have always observed what the world has showed to me, only to give testimony of it in my paintings." His friend, the French writer Georges Clemenceau, in an 1896 essay, wrote: "One notices that the art, in its persistence of expressing the nature with increasing exactitude, teaches us to watch, to perceive, to feel."

Indeed, in The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light, Monet's painting shows us the courage of Impressionism at its finest.

Note: To view additional paintings in The Rouen Cathedral series, please see: http://www.theartwolf.com/monet_cathedral.htm 

Welcoming 2012

United Nations Sculpture in Grace Cathedral,
San Francisco, California.

An introduction: I enjoy sharing messages with my friends that combine sacred thought with secular wisdom. I think that the two play well together. There are so many different things that can tie together a good message about our faith, love and hope in God. And, there are plenty of good messages that are worth sharing. Sometimes, it just takes moving in the slow lane of life, observing, and enjoying the journey.

Today, I would like share a few thoughts about 2011 with an eye toward 2012:

As we wake up across the world this Sunday, January 1, a new year is upon us. It's funny, but just a few hours ago it was still 2011. Out with the old and in with the new as the saying goes. Yet, as I look back over the past 12 months, I can proudly say that I have gained many meaningful friendships, both near to my California home and also many time zones away around the world. Also, I have achieved so much knowledge and wisdom thanks to these new friendships. And, through your encouragement and support, I have started this weekly dialogue combining sacred thought with secular wisdom. I am grateful.

A Facebook friend of mine from Tunisia, whom I met last spring, credits my ability to be a tolerant and open-minded individual with making her comfortable to share her thoughts and opinions ~ both cultural and political ~ with me. Imagine, me a Christian raised in the Anglican tradition of the U.S. Episcopal church, and she, a Muslim who is very proud of her Islamic faith, exchanging a open and peaceful dialogue that has been as much secular as it has been sacred in nature. Over the months, she has asked me my thoughts about Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey and I have attained a new insight about Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting that teaches Muslims about patience, spirituality and humility. 

Because of these meaningful, newfound friendships, I learned firsthand about the Arab Spring revolution that began in Tunisia (the northernmost country in Africa) a year ago, which enabled its citizens with the opportunity to participate in open and democratic elections for the first time in their lives in October.

Also, I learned firsthand about the flooding that paralyzed the Southeast Asian country of Thailand this fall and what it was like not knowing whether a friend's home in Bangkok would suffer severe flood damage or, thank goodness, be spared from the worst. 

Finally, I learned firsthand about the impact that the elite tennis professional Novak Djokovic has meant to his native Serbia ~ how he almost single-handedly made a troubled country feel better about itself thanks to attaining a No. 1 world ranking in 2011 ~ from several Serbians, whom I befriended through a mutual love of tennis. Mind you, these friends of mine grew up amidst the tense atmosphere of the Yugoslav Wars of the early 1990s, filled with political isolation, economic decline and ethnic cleansing ~ something which I could not fathom happening here in the U.S. Thanks to my Serbian friends ~ not to mention Djokovic ~ I am able to envision their country in a more positive light.

For me, the year 2011 was filled with learning about internationalism and realizing the potential of our wonderful world if we all "do the right thing."

Looking ahead to 2012, it is my hope that each of us can learn the importance of tolerance and to become open-minded individuals in developing friendships with others regardless of social, economic or religious barriers.

The former secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian, who won the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, knows the importance of tolerance and being open minded. He said: "We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race." 

Words of hope to start the New Year.

Happy 2012 my dear friends.

May God bless us all.

May our year be filled with peace on Earth.

Peace, Mike