Sunday, June 03, 2012

Valdese, North Carolina

















Valdese, North Carolina. This mural chronicles the relocation of Waldensians from the Italian Alps to Valdese in the late 1800s. Artistic bilocation. Mystic chords of memory. The benches in the foreground have a grape leaf motif honoring wine.

Waldensians may have broken away from Catholicism, but not alcohol. I like that in a religious sect. Alcohol consumption among proto-Protestants and Protestants is a mixed bag: depends on the group and various articles of faith and dogma. (Mural by Clive Haynes).     



















If you've heard of the "Boogie Man" or the "Bogey Man," you already know -- perhaps indirectly -- of another proto-Protestant sect and movement: the Bogomil (or Bogomils). Other "heresies" and "heterodoxies" comparable to the Waldensians (Waldenses, Vaudois): the Cathari or Albigensians (Albigenses), and a half-millennium later, the Huguenots, or French Calvinists.

Christians slaying Christians through the ages: what good fun for all involved! As Mick Jagger put it of the Devil, in 1968: "I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made . . ." Indeed, a pertinent post on Fort Caroline, Florida, will appear somewhere down the pike. But meanwhile, a salute to the Waldensians who made their new home in Valdese, North Carolina, and lived to tell the tale.     

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

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