Here is Pissarro's depiction of the same Boulevard Montmartre at night, seen from his hotel window. He painted while sitting indoors as his infected eyes were painfully light sensitive and because he felt safer there after having been verbally accosted one evening by a group of anti-semitic bullies. Why do so many Christian countries carry the ugly stain of anti-semitism, even till today?
I took my first teaching job in January 1974, at Holy Name of Jesus School at 96th and Broadway in what was then the beginning of Harlem. I had a class of 33 wonderfully alive second graders. Lucky me!
One day we unrolled on the classroom floor a long roll of heavy, brown wrapping paper and printed out the entire Canticle of the Three Children which is found in Catholic Bibles in the Book of Daniel 3:23ff...
Sun and moon, showers of rain and fall of dew, wind, fire and heat, winter and summer, flakes of snow, chill and cold, ice and sleet, storm clouds and thunderbolts, mountains and hills, growing things, springs of water, seas and streams whales and fishes, birds of the air, beasts of the wild, flocks and herds, men and women...all glorify the Lord.
The seven-year-olds sat on the floor working in little groups illustrating this picturesque Song of Creation - everything glorifying God. Most translations invite the sun and moon and stars of the sky to praise God, but the translation I had simply said, "lights of the night, glorify the Lord."
How delightful to see a city child's interpretation - instead of stars and night planets, which would have been invisible, blocked out by the bright city lights, they made a busy avenue of bright street lights on poles, cars and buses with headlights, taxi cabs with illuminated roof lights.
Jesus said, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear." Matthew 13:16
Jesus said, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear." Matthew 13:16
