Happy Halloween

Well, tomorrow is Halloween, a holiday that has come into our modern life via various cultural and religious festivals. In the Celtic world, Samhain was one of the major holy days celebrated during the year, marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter. In Wales this night was called Nos Galan Gaeaf. It was believed that the dead would walk the earth on this night, and people would build large bonfires to ward them off. As illustrated here by Jonas Lindbärg, people would leap over the flames for luck.

The heavens declare the glory of God

The Pillars of Creation is a photo of a portion of the Eagle Nebula where new stars are being formed. It is also a LEGO mosaic by Brandon Button. Why include it here? Let's look to Brandon's motivation in choosing his subject matter, as reported in an article in the Mormon Times:

Button also says he was struck by the connection to the gospel the "Pillars of Creation" photograph seem to represent.
The three "Pillars of the Gospel" are the Creation, the Fall and the Atonement. In the temple, intimate details of the Creation and the Fall are revealed. The need for the Atonement is made very clear. In the temple, a grander perspective of the Plan of Salvation is presented.
He says that through this photograph, "we can realize and feel God's love for us in a more personal way and on a broader scale." To Button, this photograph shows order and purpose to the universe, and is evidence that our own existence is not accidental.

Sadly, this is the only photo I can find of the mosaic. Photo credit goes to John Evans of the Mormon Times. Hopefully Brandon, the builder, will post photos of this to one of the photo sharing sites LEGO hobbyists tend to use - he mentions in the article that he got the mosaic software from Lugnet, a major LEGO hobby website, so he has some connection to the fan community.

Gifts of Grace

The actual LEGO creation isn't religiously themed, but Chris Wunz built this maxi-fig(giant version of a minifig) for a program at his church. Their "Gifts of Grace" festival involved giving coats and other items to needy families. Chris set up a LEGO station to occupy kids from these families while their parents were otherwise busy.

Reformation Sunday

Yesterday was Reformation Sunday, when Protestant churches recognize Martin Luther, who nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg, setting off a chain of events resulting in the Protestant Reformation. Here we see the scene recreated in LEGO form by Chris Wunz.



BTW, just a helpful hint, if you're traveling through Germany and want to make a side trip to visit this site, "Wittenberge" and "Wittenberg" are two different towns. True story - I made this mistake and found myself in a small town that, while pleasant enough, has no real features to commend itself to a tourist. And the next train to take me back to Berlin wasn't coming for another four hours.

Agostino Novello again

I previously noted three creations by Italian LEGO builder Mautara illustrating miracles attributed to Agostino Novello. He's completed a fourth scene, saving a child fallen from a cradle, thus completing his recreation of the panels from an altarpiece by Simone Martini. Mautara has said that his next project will be a LEGO recreation of a fresco of Saint Mauro from the Abbey of Monteoliveto, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

LEGO ornaments for charity

The Christmas season is often seen by Christians and many others as a time to be concerned about those in need. As described in the Omaha World Herald, seven-year-old Brandon Carlson has combined LEGO and charity, selling LEGO Christmas tree ornaments to raise money for the Food Bank. Each ornament sold will fill a backpack with food for a hungry kid. Sounds like a great project to me. To order one of the ornaments, or a kit so you can build your own, see the Carlsons' website at Ornaments 4 Charity.

Wars of Humanity

The Wars of Humanity site is devoted to stop-motion animation using LEGO (called Brickfilms) based on stories from the Exodus and Joshua. Their 20-30 minute films have won awards at various film festivals and have been shown at churches and other venues. It looks like they are planning on selling a DVD, or you can contact them via their website if you want to learn how to schedule their film. Their site hosts short trailers for each of the three films. Attack of the Plagues looks at the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh. Price of Rebellion follows the Israelites into the wilderness after they leave Egypt. Jericho, the Promise Fulfilled takes the Israelites into the Promised Land (this last one I linked on YouTube, as the video on their site seems to be broken).

Last Supper

Bill Vollbrecht built this version of Da Vinci's Last Supper out of all chrome pieces. Photo credit goes to Mariann Asanuma.

Key Islamic leader urges forgiveness

Key Islamic leader urges forgiveness - so reads an article from Thailand from last month. Several years ago, someone took an image from the Brick Testament that was meant to illustrate immorality in Israel before the time of King Saul, and they made fake box art, claiming it was a LEGO set about Muhammad in a sexual situation. This angered many Muslim groups, and LEGO had to make an apology and reassure people that this was not a real set but was rather a fake. In this story from Thailand, someone re-used this image in an student magazine promoting sexual awareness. Local Islamic leaders got upset, and the publisher ran a "five-day public apology advertisement in seven Thai-language dailies," published 50,000 copies of a book on Muhammad, and burned hundreds of copies of the magazine. I'm disturbed by the implied intimidation here that made the publisher go to such lengths. I'm also disturbed that no one ever seems to try to learn something about the original creator of the image or to ask Brendan permission for its re-use.



As before - warning - clicking through the image to the original source will show minifigs in an implied sexual situation. If that sort of thing bothers you, don't click.

Forgive me, father, for I have ...

LEGO builder zgrredek has some fun with the Sacrament of Penance, more simply known as confession. The idea of confession in Christianity goes back to James 5:16 - "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." In the Catholic tradition, the Church is held to be heir to the promise of Christ to his disciples in John 20:23 - "If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven."
From the LEGO building standpoint, note that minifigs don't have knees, but here zgrredek has come up with two different solutions to get more realistic poses.



Found via Klocki, another LEGO blog.

The Spirit of God descending like a dove

In the very front of Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican stands the Cathedra Petri, or the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter. This monument, completed by Bernini in 1666, holds a chair that Peter is said to have sat on as he taught the church in Rome. The whole monument is topped by a stained glass window, also by Bernini, depicting the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove - imagery repeated in all four gospel accounts of the baptism of Christ.



When Brian Korte was in the Vatican on his honeymoon, he was so impressed with this image that he decided to recreate it in LEGO form. His mosaic is built of all transparent LEGO elements, so it can work as a real stained glass (okay, stained plastic) window. All of Brian's LEGO mosaics can be found at Brickworkz, and you can even commission him to create one for you. Brian has said he plans on making more mosaics from religious-themed art, so you can expect to see more of his work on this blog.

Ishtar Gate

Ishtar is not just a bad movie from the late 1980's - Ishtar was a goddess in ancient Babylon, where she was associated with both love and war. King Nebuchadnezzar II (the same one from the biblical book of Daniel) had a gate erected in her honor leading into the inner city. Today the pieces of this gate have been transported to Germany, where they are reconstructed in the Pergamon Museum (and it's really impressive to see in person). A French LEGO builder has made a great replica and recently displayed it along with other AFOLs.

Ahimsa

Ahimsa is the principle of doing no harm, and is important in several religions centered around India - Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. It was preached by Gautama Buddha, leads many to vegetarianism and is tied to the idea of Karma. Jains take this to the greatest lengths, going out of their way to avoid harming even small insects. Today is the 140th birthday of Mohandas K. Gandhi, here depicted in minifig form by Andrew Becraft, perhaps the most well-known proponent of ahimsa. He took this concept from religion and philosophy and applied it to political action in his resistance to British rule. He was also a great influence on Martin Luther King Jr., though Dr. King found the philosophical grounding for his non-violence in Christian teachings.

Great and tiny mosque

Islam has been a growing presence in the Netherlands, and now 6% of the Dutch are Muslims. This is largely due to immigration from Turkey, Morocco and other nations, and to some extent differential birth rates, though this effect may be exaggerated in the popular press. The bulk of the Dutch Muslims live in the four major cities, including Utrecht, where a new Ulu Mosque is being built (as far as I can tell, that translates to "great mosque" or "national mosque"). Dutch LEGO builder Eti has built a micro version of this mosque to include as part of a whole microscale layout built by a group of Dutch AFOLs.

Runestone

King Haraldr ordered this monument made in memory of Gormr, his father, and in memory of Þyrvé, his mother; that Haraldr who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian

So reads the inscription on a runestone marking the baptism of the tenth-century Danish King Harald Bluetooth into this new religion. On another side of the stone is Denmark's oldest picture of Jesus. This is a typical example of a runestone. These large stones were erected throughout Scandinavia from the fourth to the twelth centuries to note significant events, honor the dead or commemorate the construction of a new building or bridge. These can also have religious notation, such as King Harald's cited above. In some areas, the majority of runestones have Christian prayers or crosses, helping document the spread of Christianity in northern Europe. There are also many references to earlier Norse beliefs - references to Odin, depictions of stories involving Thor and other gods and often encircled by a picture of the Midgard Serpent. In this scene by Swedish LEGO fan Etzel we see men erecting a runestone to note the building of a new bridge.

Happy Eid ul-Fitr

In Islam, Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of the month-long observance of Ramadan. Ramadan marks the month in which Muhammad received the Qur'an, and Muslims practice fasting, prayers and reading of the Qur'an during this time. Eid ul-Fitr roughly translates as "festivity of breaking the fast" - a time of celebration and feasting. Last week Turkish LEGO builder legoadam built this Mahmudiye Camii Mosque to mark the holy month of Ramadan.

Cretan chapel

Barbara Werth, aka McBricker, has created this lovely Orthodox chapel from the isle of Crete. Since many of my US readers might be less familiar with the Orthodox Church, a quick digression. Five centuries before the Protestant Reformation, an earlier schism divided the Christian Church into eastern (Orthodox) and western (Roman Catholic) halves. The occasion of this division was a theological dispute over a phrase added to the Nicene Creed - "and the Son" (or "filioque" in Latin). The eastern church held that the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, proceeded from the Father, while the western church held that the Spirit came from the Father and the Son. While this may seem like a very fine point to us today, and probably something most modern Christians never consider, it was also tied up with questions of the authority of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope), disputes over political control and cultural differences. To a complete outsider, the Orthodox may be seen as "priests with funny hats" in that their clergy wear traditional dress. Their religious practices are similar to pre-Vatican II Catholicism. The churches tend to be divided up along national lines, so there is a Greek Orthodox church, a Russian Orthodox church and so on. (Please forgive my vastly oversimplified statements here as an outsider.)



Barbara's chapel gets a lot of details of this chapel down. Since she places this "between Rethymno and Irakleo" it's somewhere on the northern coast of Crete - so the cliff is facing north, and therefore the chapel is facing east, as is traditional. Also note the iconostasis, or icon-covered screen at the front (apparently this church is dedicated to Saint Potter :) ), the candles and the bell. As a LEGO builder I also really appreciate the curved roof, the tiny goats up above to give forced perspective and the mountain in the distance built in as a mosaic.

On a blog-centric aside, note that I've split the "architecture" tag into two - real and fictional. Real is for those LEGO creations that recreate specific buildings from the real world, such as the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Fictional is for those buildings out of the builder's imagination, even if it might be based, for instance, on a typical gothic cathedral style. I was actually unsure in this case, as does give a fairly specific locale for this chapel, but she doesn't single it out as one specific church.

Navigation

Just a quick note - I've added tags to the posts and a tag cloud and search function over on the sidebar to make it easier to navigate my blog. The sidebar has also been rearranged a bit - the top box is about this blog and the bottom box is links to the wider LEGO fan community.

World holidays

Several years ago, Anne Schubert created a display for the school where she taught. The theme was holidays around the world to promote understanding of different religions and cultures.



Here we see three different holidays from three different religions. Perhaps my favorite was from Spain, with a depiction of Epiphany.



I love how this blog has me learning new things. Ati-Atihan arose in the Phillipines in the thirteenth century as two cultures came into contact. This January festival mixed Islamic and Animist traditions. Later, Spanish missionaries influenced the festival to shift into a celebration of the Christ child.



Humorously, Anne's source material suggested consumerism as the religion of the United States.

Simplicius Simplicissimus

In the years following the Protestant Reformation, conflict spread through Europe. Between 1618 and 1648, Germany was devastated by the Thirty Years War between Protestant and Catholic groups. The Peace of Augsburg in 1555 had sought to provide a compromise between Lutherans and Catholics and bring peace to the Holy Roman Empire. Add to that the rise of Calvinist groups, and also other nations seeking to take advantage of conflicts for their own territorial gain, and you get the Thirty Years War, which devastated parts of Germany between 1618 and 1648. The 1668 German novel Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch, or Simplicius Simplicissimus, is set against the background of this war.



German LEGO fan Johannes Koehler recreated the novel's cover in LEGO form.



According to Jojo:

The figure is a Pan or Satyr. Satyrs symbolise the "theater", as they gave the name for the "satire", a burlesque that was played during the intermission in a dramatic play. Often the Devil is personated after this image (horns, horse foot, wings). So this figure was a symbol for the evil in the "world theater" (30 years of war) as well as for the humourours form of the novel.

One of his long-term LEGO goals is to create further illustrations from this novel. I've included this on this blog both because of the religious conflict that underlies the novel and also for the way the satyr got transformed over time into an image of Satan.