Geoff W. Sutton Blog

Raphael, Eusebius of Cremona raising Three Men from the Dead  with Saint Jerome's Cloak (c 1502-3) SPIRIT OF HALLOWEEN LEADS TO FEAR OR FUN Seven Scary Themes 1. Surprise! That delightful toddler experience on being found or finding a hiding grandparent; The squeal of faux fright when a family member pops up unexpectedly; The ability to hide within a dinosaur costume or some scary character and get a reaction from play-along adults.      I’m lost! This is a closely related childhood fear of distress when a child can’t find his or her parents. Especially for a child alone in a mall or who wandered off in a large store. Now this fright is available in a corn maze or the darkened halls of a haunted house. 2. I’m scared! What fun to trot out the usual fear-inducing spiders and snakes, create faux thunderstorms, or move people into an enclosed space. Fun, unless you are one of the 27,000,000 Americans that have a specific phobia. ...

Cross & Heart 2023 Geoffrey Sutton and Bing AI Messing with Malevolent Metaphors Exploring the role of metaphors in Christian teaching about purity and sanctity. As a child I learned that sin made my heart black. I learned this lesson by means of small plastic hearts dangling from a chain. Hearts are red, white and black. You start with a black heart. All have sinned. Red hearts mean Jesus' blood cleanses, White hearts mean we're all cleaned up. For many Christians, white is good , pure, clean and holy. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Black is bad , evil, and linked to sin. We’ll never measure up—the good things we do are but filthy rags. Outer darkness is where you go if you die without Jesus. So what's the problem with such metaphors? Is it possible that metaphors, which glorify whiteness and link blackness to sin influence, racist attitudes? Do religious metaphors guide our thinking about people? Metaphors My task the week I wrote ...