Happy Holidaze!

For this Holidaze post, I bring you a Jesus banana and His mother as a cascading waterfall. Who needs a manger?

According to this Daily Telegraph report, Lisa Swinton went to her fruit bowl for a healthy snack and chose this slightly bruised banana, found at the bottom of the bowl. Everyone knows that the brown spots equal sweetness, but Swinton was shocked when she noticed the face: ‘‘I was like ‘Oh my God! It’s Jesus on a banana!’’ I guess Swinton was really hungry because she snapped some pics and then peeled this sucker, later posting images on her Facebook page. For Swinton and her crowd, such visual manifestations, apparently, are no big thing; she tells the Daily Telegraph that her friends have seen Mary in mold and on a door. But have they seen Mary in a waterfall?



The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “You cannot step twice in the same river.” And that goes for waterfalls, too, meaning photographer Carl Silverstein was in the right place at the right time when he shot this photograph. Titled “Falls of Foyer – Woman Holding Child,” Silverstein emailed me the image as he thought I would appreciate it, which I do. The patterns and rhythms of nature inform everything about life, no matter how far-removed we are from those patterns and rhythms; their echoes influence how people recognize these forms in the most unexpected places, even if the people don’t realize it.

See you in 2010, people. If you miss me, Madonna of the Toast can keep you company.

UK Representing!

That’s a rock in a Welsh garden. The owner’s niece was out playing and came into the house to ask who the man in the garden was. The girl’s aunt didn’t see a man, but she did see the face of Elvis Presley on the slab of slate. This story comes from icWales.co.uk, and even goes so far as to link Elvis to this area in Wales. But first, the rock.

The owner has asked to remain anonymous, concerned that swarms of fans would otherwise descend on her property, disrupting the bucolic tranquility. Apparently, she has already been offered close to $2,000 for the rock, but even though she is not a big fan of Elvis’s music, she has become attached to the iconic visual manifestation.

Bought as an ornament, the owner of the stone says that the image was not there at first. It took six months for the face to appear. In her words: “We left it alone, imagining it would disappear as quickly as it had come, but that hasn’t happened. It’s still there.”

According to the article, a whole body of academic research already exists linking Elvis’s familial lineage to this western portion of Wales that sits in the shadows of the . . . Preseli mountains! Apparently Druids used rocks from this area for Stonehenge.

Here’s what the article says:

Cardiff academic Terry Breverton claimed in 2000 to have new evidence that Elvis’ ancestors came from Wales, citing the link between the names Presley and Preseli.

Supporting his theory was the legend of St Elvis of Munster, who apparently baptised St David. Mr Breverton claimed the Presley family could well have had links with a Pembrokeshire chapel dedicated to St Elvis, the only one known in Britain.

And he pointed to the Welsh names of Elvis’ mother Gladys, his stillborn brother, Jesse Garon and his grandmother Doll Mansell, who may be descended from the famous Mansel family of Gower.

So, has Elvis returned to his roots? Think he’s thirsty for a Jesus cider?



The Daily Mail reports that Michael Cartwright, a taxi driver from Darlington, was at Tanners Hall, his local pub, with some mates when the “barmaid” brought the group’s drinks to the table. As soon as she popped the top off Cartwright’s bottle, the face of Jesus puckered up in the foil. His buddies saw it, too. And the barmaid must have as well, as she cleared the bottles, leaving Cartwright with nothing more than memories and a tummy full of cider.

Bully for you United Kingdom! I downed many pints of lager in London a few weeks ago, but I didn’t see Jesus, Elvis or many barmaids. In Madonna of the Toast, there are several stories from the UK, including an Oscar fish from Allah, a Michelin Man carrot and the face of Rasputin in a cat’s ear. You’ll have to buy the book to see those!

Not Much to See, but Something to Read

Last week I passed along the story out of Miami, Florida, about the Holy Family shadow in the church. Well, it’s gone. Vanished. But the people still come, according to this Miami Herald article. The faithful seemed impressed just to be in St. Brendan Catholic Church, the fleeting manifestation some sort of holy-status booster.

The article closes with an image I can’t help but relay to you: a crowd of 12 gathered around a woman’s cell phone looking at the image of the image from a few days earlier. Apparently, Julie Verdeja saw the shadow last weekend and captured it on her phone, which she had with her last Tuesday. Didn’t they know that could see a perfectly good image of the image right here?!?

Father Fernando Heria, the church's priest, has it right, though, what matters is the "impact the image had on its believers."

Across the pond, in Bilston, in the middle of the United Kingdom, factory worker and born-again Christian Malcolm Jones discovered what he perceives at the face of Jesus on his workbench, the very workbench where he reads his bibles during breaks. I haven’t been able to grab a still-shot anywhere, but if you read this Express and Star report, you can also watch a quick video that shows the face.



In Madonna of the Toast, I included a couple of stories from the UK, including this Michelin Man carrot. Where there is faith, there is the potential for an iconographic face to show up unexpectedly, even if you can’t see it.