Of Trees, Both Living and Turned into Newspaper

This is a first: a two-in-one face! Discovered in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, this sycamore tree bears a resemblance to former Mayor Donald E. Stephens, and Jesus. Reported today by the Chicago Sun-Times, even relatives and close friends of the recently deceased man see his face in the peeling bark of this tree outside of a health club. Even the village’s new mayor, Stephens’s son Bradley, sees his father in the tree.



Why this tree of all trees? Well, apparently Stephens twice saved this tree from being chopped down, and now his acts of conservation have earned him a spot in nature (if you can call a tree by a parking lot a part of nature).

The story doesn’t end there, though. A couple weeks after the face was identified, a woman came along and prayed to the tree because to her the face looks like Jesus.

There’s no way to say who’s right, but I think it is safe to say that this tree will not be felled anytime soon, and at this rate the world can use all the trees it can get!

And from news of the midwest to news from more southern climes: You may remember that a couple of posts back I mentioned my trip down to Miami the Thursday before Memorial Day to chat with Diana Duyser about her Grilled Cheese Madonna fame and fortune. The well-appointed Coral Gables Books and Books hosted the event, and though the crowd was thin, those in attendance were engaged.



The other day, Nicholas Spangler wrote a piece about Diana, and mentioned the reading, in the Miami Herald.

I guess Spangler has spent some time with Diana and her husband over the years, and this piece focuses on their current state of affairs, which is less than ideal. In light of their circumstances, he seems to dig into them a bit, which admittedly they set themselves up for, but not everything is as it looks, just consider all of these various objects in which some people see holy figures and other people see water stains.