An unhappy gargoyle!!!! Perhaps even a little angry or just naturaly a glass half empty. I love the carving; it is so expressive!
It perhaps speaks to us of what we might try to hide, but which reveals itself through our facial expression. Somebody picking up on what we think might be hiding inside us, out of sight…..’Are you OK?’ The question that reveals what is happening within. The response is generally, ‘I’m fine thanks’…and the retort is, ‘You don’t look it!’ Fight or flight, what do we do?
Happy days..or running away? The gargoyle has no choice. It is frozen in this pose for ever.
It makes me wonder about what I/we reveal to others, that we are not even aware of. The external has a nasty habit of revealing what is inside us, and we can’t run away from it; others pick up the signals.
Then we move onto the complex relationship with God. It think the slight look of bemusement on the gargoyle says it all. Perhaps the medieval stonemason was picturing himself, his own sense of who he was. His grasping for meaning…or just having a bad day and not feeling particularly holy.
My sense is that God approaches us just as we are; Happy days/ Sad days. We don’t need to put on a mask to appraoch God, we come as we are and are welcomed as we are.
Happy days….!!!
Musings 