 through.
Joining a growing range of watches with an ocean conservation theme, Oris’s newest limited-edition diver is specifically dedicated to the restoration a coral reef in the Florida Keys. With the solid construction and water resistance of Oris’s well-loved Aquis dive watch, the Carysfort Reef Limited Edition features a GMT complication and sporty, colorful highlights.
In steel at 43.5mm wide, the new LE follows a similar, recently release model produced in 18k gold and priced at $19,000. Limited to 50 examples, three of them were donated directly to the Florida-based Coral Restoration Foundation, which Oris has worked with since 2014. The new models are less limited and less expensive, but still benefit the Foundation and its mission by raising awareness of the issue.
The Carysfort is similar in its specs to the Oris’s Aquis GMT, with 300m of water resistance and the Sellita SW330-1 automatic movement. While the Aquis GMT has a the bonus of a window in the caseback to view the movement, the limited edition has a solid case back engraved with a coral reef motif in relief.
2,000 examples of the Oris Carysfort Reef Limited Edition are being produced, each with a price of $3,000 on a steel bracelet or $2,800 on an orange rubber strap.
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Thursday, April 24, 2014
Turned Turf
These daffodils by the Lake today are almost a month later than usual. They push up through sticks and the remains of last summer's lilies.
I woke during the night and picked up District and Circle, a book of poetry by Seamus Heaney. I am never sure, but I think in one poem he is describing his awakening to life and maybe to God. He describes the cutting and turning of peat to dry in the sun. Then he goes on to speak of himself: "...once I felt the air I was like turned turf in the breath of God."
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Almost Heaven
I've been hearing rumors about Corridor H in West Virginia for many years, but it didn't seem like it would ever be of use to me. Recently some friends told me that some new sections had been finished that brought it from Interstate 81 to Bismarck, W.V., not too far from where I live. It is Route 48.
Since I use Dulles Airport I got so excited about it yesterday afternoon that I drove over to Bismarck and got on it and drove to Moorefield, W.V. which took only 25 minutes. The views were magnificent, an elegant bit of road building. Parts of West Virginia that I had never seen. I guess much of it was seen only by people who lived in the small towns in these mountains.
Much of the westernmost part of the road is also finished, but the sections from Bismarck west to at least Parsons are not.
Posted by halfhermitbythelake at 6:15 PM No comments:
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Peace To You
Another picture of Friday's glorious sunset. This is one of the first pictures I took that evening. I came back in the house, but the sunset wouldn't quit. I put on a coat and went back out. That's when I got the picture I used Saturday. That time I stayed out until the sky faded into darkness.
I've been reading about John 20:19-31 and meditating on it.
Father Raymond Brown says that Jesus' saying "Peace to you" goes beyond a greeting. It is rather a statement that Jesus' Resurrection has brought them peace. At the Last Supper he had said to the disciples, "Peace is my farewell to you; my peace is my gift to you; and I do not give it to you as the world gives it. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27)" Jesus repeats, "Peace," as he sends the disciples as the Father has sent him.
The peace that Jesus is talking about is not the absence of war or conflict. His Easter gift to the disciples and to us is an abiding sense of well being, a deep contentment that springs from our conviction that the Risen Jesus lives within us and is caring for us, looking out for us, protecting us. We have no reason to be troubled or afraid. We experience profound rest in his love for us and our love for him. Our peace in the Risen Jesus is enlarged by our awareness that all others are experiencing the same deep contentment. As faith deepens peace blossoms.
Posted by halfhermitbythelake at 1:29 PM No comments:
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Beyond Time and Space
Last night's sunset, a fitting end for the Friday that we call Good. Maybe an Easter sunset service might capture the glory.
None of the four Gospel writers describe the actual Resurrection, but if any of them were going to it would have been Matthew. His account of the Empty Tomb (28:1-10) has more dramatic events than any of the others. He wishes to show that the Resurrection is of cosmic importance, shaking the foundations of the world and affecting those long dead. He uses typical apocalyptic imagery to symbolize that the power of God has intervened definitively in the tomb of Jesus.
The Resurrection itself could not be described. It was an event that touched the other world beyond time and space. When Matthew's angel rolls back the stone, it's not to let Jesus out of the tomb, but to show that Jesus is no longer in the tomb.
I used to imagine Jesus bursting out of the tomb. But let's suppose that while Jesus lay dead in the darkness of the tomb his Father drew him body and soul into that other world beyond time and space. Jesus in all his humanity becomes alive in a totally new way that enables him to move back and forth between worlds. That's why he can appear as if from nowhere to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and later to the other disciples.
That's why he can live in us and in our whole cosmos, gathering all into God and filling us and our world with an Easter joy beyond imagining.
Posted by halfhermitbythelake at 8:41 PM No comments:
Friday, April 18, 2014
Exodus
Maybe the greatest experience of art that I had last year was the exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City titled "Chagall: Love, War, and Exile." I wrote about it here last November 14, but this Good Friday I am revisiting it through the book I bought at that time.
A Jew, born in Russia, Chagall ended up in the United States to escape Hitler's persecution of the Jews. To express his concern for the Jews who were being killed in Europe he painted more than 25 pictures of the Crucifixion. He stressed the Jewishness of Jesus and used his Crucifixion as a symbol of what was happening to the Jews in the concentration camps. He commented, "My Christ, as I depict him, is always the type of the Jewish martyr, in pogroms and in our other troubles, and not otherwise."
Among the many explanations of his art on the walls of the exhibit was this: "The Crucifixion images were not an expression of Christian theology. For him the cross was a symbol of persecution and oppression rather than a sign of redemption and hope." That's a very succinct expression of what the Cross means to us. Their were two paintings that I thought came very close to expressing redemption and hope.
One of them is the picture (above) which Chagall titled "Exodus." While it was not the most beautiful painting in the exhibit, it held for me the deepest meaning. A large Christ is leading the Jewish people across the Red Sea to the Promised Land. Moses holding the Tablets of the Commandments is almost out of the scene in the lower right hand corner. Jesus is pictured with a halo and is surrounded by light, more as the triumphant Christ of John's Passion account rather than as the suffering Christ of Matthew's Passion.
We Christians use the Exodus as a prototype of Jesus leading us out of slavery to sin into the promised land of new life. Redemption and hope.
Posted by halfhermitbythelake at 1:16 PM No comments:
Wash one another's feet.
This is an extraordinarily clear picture of a dove outside my window. Peace!? (Click on it to enlarge it)
I had planned to use the powerful picture of Pope Francis washing the feet of imprisoned young people last Holy Thursday, that the Jesuits have been using as part of their vocation appeal. I could not get it to show up properly on the blog. I gave up, but today I thought I might at least include part of my reflections from yesterday.
This Holy Thursday Francis went to a home for elderly and disabled and washed the feet of twelve people: 9 Italians, a Muslim from Libya, a young man from Cape Verde, and an Ethiopian woman, some of them with feet that were swollen and disfigured. He washed and dried and kissed their feet and explained that Jesus had made a gesture, the job of a slave, a servant, and left us this inheritance. "We need," the Pope said, "to be servants to one another." Seeing this on TV or the internet is an enormous challenge to