in the painting the men argue in a phosphorescent room.
that school in Athens Meredith Benjamin
after Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’ (1511) fresco in the Vatican. in ‘School of Athens,’ Raphael imagines the great philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists of classical antiquity gathered under one roof. it has come to symbolize the marriage of art, science, and philosophy that defined the Italian Renaissance.
i have spent all morning staring at Jesus on the cross. the silence was tense and awkward. so i asked him oh my god how’ve you been?? and hey, have you heard from your dad lately? which was cringey, i know, but in my defense the past few years, God has been a little off the grid. he says i could be his Virgin Mother Mary, that our resemblance is uncanny. i bite my tongue, pretending there’s no gaping difference between her and me. it seems most of my time these days is spent negotiating the sexuality of all of womankind but my feet hurt and my back was aching and i simply didn’t feel like getting into it with Christ today. so when he said that for him it’s been awhile, i just said yeah, i’m waiting for ‘the one’. in the painting the men argue and compared to all that Jesus stuff, i guess it’s more relatable?
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