I'm Not the Only One Thinking About This Stuff

Straight out of Stockton, California: a Virgin of Guadalupe rock. Jamie Garcia had hit rock bottom (get it?), having lost his family because of his excessive drinking. While working construction, according to this CBS 13 report, Garcia found the rock pictured above and immediately felt that his life had changed. He quit his vices and grew closer with his wife and kids. Garcia believes the image to be that of the Virgin of Guadalupe with Juan Diego looking up at Her. Garcia goes on to say that he has been offered $80,000 for the rock, “but he refused, saying it’s priceless.” That’s something you say when you’re offered $100 for one of grandma’s old baubles, or you're mimicking one of those credit card commercials. If the story is true I guess credit (I'm on fire today with the wordplay, no?) has to be given to Garcia for not selling out.

If you’re a regular in these parts and have already read and re-read Madonna of the Toast you might be interested in this tongue-in-cheek perspective from the Contra Costa Times, which riffs on a Jesus ultrasound (different from the one I mentioned last post). Here’s an excerpt:

As I have two biological children, according to the last time I counted, I have some experience in trying to decipher ultrasound images. It's not easy. One minute you think you're looking at a little thumb, the next the doctor tells you that thumb is really a spleen. I once thought my daughter's ultrasound actually showed a squadron of Russian fighter planes attacking Dublin and tried to call the authorities. You just never know — it could happen.

Though seeing Jesus in there could be just as startling. I'm sure Mary and Joseph had the same reaction when they got their first three-dimensional ultrasound at Bethlehem Ultrasound and Donkey Feed.

Until next time . . .

Jesus Ultrasound, Virgin Mary Breastfeeding

I don’t see it, but that’s not important, because according to this WESH 2 report, Joaquim Garcia sees the face of Jesus staring back at him from this ultrasound of his child. That’s pretty much the long and short of it – amazing what passes for news – but I couldn’t resist in light of the recent decision out of the Vatican reversing a trend that has been in motion since the 17th century: censoring portraits of the Virgin Mary breastfeeding. What was once seen as too carnal has now been condoned, according to the UK's Telegraph. As one advocate of the decision says: “The Virgin Mary who nurses her son Jesus is one of the most eloquent signs that the word of God truly and undoubtedly became flesh.”

Take that idea and splice it into the ultrasound tidbit and somewhere there’s a good metaphor for our contemporary cultural condition. Flesh becomes light a la Marshall McLuhan, maybe? Images mistaken for objects, like Plato once opined. Any other thoughts?

Freezer Burn is Better Than a Heart Attack

Well, the news has been quiet on the surprising iconography front – must be all the tomato salmonella scares (I’m just glad this isn’t happening at the peak of the tomato season). So, I’ve decided to take a stroll through the aisles of eBay. Look what I found:



That’s a fried clam and its owner believes it resembles Christ on the cross. The story goes like this: the battered bit was served up on a heap of other battered bits at a restaurant. The person usually just scarfs them down because they’re so small, but upon seeing this deep-fired shape, “stopped cold in [her/his] tracks.” That was over two years ago. Ever since, the morsel has been bestowing luck on its owner from the freezer. Like how she/he made a full and fast recovery after a quintuple bypass surgery (which was necessary because “all the major arteries were blocked to my heart”).

Some might say that is was all the fried food that caused the condition, but this person is clearly in the rosy “glass half-full” camp when it comes to life.

If you buy this thing – and there is no reserve price so you can get it for a song – it will be delivered in dry ice, which is always kind of fun. I bet that this fried clam will spend the rest of its days in its freezer, jealous of all the frozen pizzas and Hot Pockets that get to warm up.

There's Always More on the Inside

Straight out of Kansas City, Missouri, we have this Virgin Mary rock. According to this KMBC 9 report, rock collector and jewelry maker Randy O’Kane found this stone while canoeing on an unnamed Missouri river. It was only upon splitting the stone that O’Kane discovered this recognizable form. Probably too big and heavy to make into a necklace, the stone may be on its way to eBay.

This is the first time that "The Show Me State" has come into play here in Madonna of the Toast land – although what had to be shown was hidden.

No word about what attracted O’Kane to the stone in the first place.

Paging Dr. Phillips

Just outside of Orlando, Florida, according to this Local 6 story, Jesus has been appearing every night on a tree, thanks to a streetlight’s shadow. Dr. Phillips resident Joe Lewis noticed the form one night and has seen it since. Lewis says that he is “not really hardcore religious” but the shape is something he couldn’t ignore.

Here’s his take on it: "The face forms where the knot is . . . Then, when you come down, there is texture. There are waves in the tree and that forms the knees and the feet. Then when the sun goes down, the street light that is right above the tree casts shadows across it and forms something that looks like Jesus."

Curious about the suburb’s name? Apparently, Philip Phillips revolutionized the production of orange juice, which resulted in him becoming a citrus barren. According to this, he was also a medical doctor, with a degree from Columbia University. He bought his first citrus farm in 1894, but a brutal 1895 freeze decimated what trees had existed. He left Florida, returning in 1897, when he began his empire. Seems like he was quite a philanthropist. His tombstone reads: "Under His Hand the Wilderness Bore Fruit."

What would Dr. Philip Phillips would have to say about this Jesus tree?

Do You Want Paper or Plastic?

This story has it all: a giant corporation, deep faith, small-town America, a cell phone camera, an aspiring writer, questionable reporting.

John Wasendorf might just remind people that Lone Tree, Iowa (A TREEmendous place to live), is on the map, thanks to this Wal-Mart Virgin Mary/face of Jesus plastic bag. After returning home from shopping, according to this Press-Citizen report, Wasendorf put away the groceries and then tossed the bag. This was on April 13. The article reports: “Two days later, while resting on his couch, Wasendorf looked over at the bag and saw the religious figures.”

The article continues:

He said the house was warm the day he went shopping, so he opened the blinds. He said that the sunlight coming in though the windows helped create the image. He believes on the right it is almost the head-to-toe image of the Virgin Mary. To the left, he sees the face of Jesus.

Does this confuse you, too? If Wasendorf discovered the image two days after he went shopping, what does the weather on the day he went shopping matter?

Stranger still, the fact that the bag’s shape made such an impact on Wasendorf that he took the time to snap the photo with his cell phone, but then lost track of the bag: “The picture is all that remains. Wasendorf said he doesn’t really remember what happened to the bag, but guesses he or a friend ‘must have picked it up and thrown it away.’”

Wasendorf claims that visions have come to him since he was young. When he was 4-years-old, a Jesus statue spoke to him after his grandmother had taken him to a hospital chapel to pray for his mother, who was about to have gallbladder surgery. His dreams also are rife with religious symbolism, from figures dressed in white to a scroll with a poem written with gold lettering. Wasendorf also makes it a point to mention that he has been on the wagon since 1979.

According to the article, the photograph of the bag was shown to hundreds of people before it was shared with the media. Some people thought it was a plastic statue, others thought it had to have been manipulated by Wasendorf and some saw the figures.

Because his life has been filled with sights and visions that not everyone else can see, Wasendorf wants to write a book. Never one to thwart the dreams of others, I say, Write on, John, write on. As you engage the process, however, come up with a better story for what happened to the bag.

The Nixon Rock

I’ve been waiting for an excuse to drag out this Presidential pareidolia: the Nixon rock. What’s my excuse? All of the publishing hoopla surrounding Rick Perlstein’s new book Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. You can read an excerpt from the book here. I haven’t read the book, and it’s a pretty safe bet that I won’t read it, especially since the topic strikes me as one that has already been put through its paces. I don’t understand what makes for a best-selling book (it is certainly about much more than the actual writing), the same as I don’t understand what causes certain people to see iconic forms and figures in unexpected places. Both phenomena seem to rely on a convergence of circumstances that is not always logical or traceable, but herein lie the mysteries of life.



Located on the southern tip of Taiwan near the town of O Luanpi, it has long been thought that this rock resembles a sail. Many people also think it resembles Richard Nixon, in profile. Of course, Nixon’s mug is one of history’s most maligned – its craggy definition found in the nose and chin. Local lore claims that after Nixon made his 1972 trip to China his head was cut off and put in this spot, destined to stare at China forever.

Madonna of the Toast includes an examination of the President Kennedy rock in Hawaii. I have been searching, in vain I fear, for the Calvin Coolidge cashew, from which protrudes a node that is the spitting image of Coolidge’s nose, one of the largest to ever reside in the White House.