jesus christ the lord

There is a painting in my house in Travelers Rest above the fireplace in the den called Alouette. It is set outdoors in the snow, presumably in a time before global warming where it snowed in places other than Antarctica and Wisconsin. On the periphery of the painting there is a group of trappers, bedecked in various types of animal skin and warming themselves by the fire. They are drinking, making music, laughing, singing, and shouting at the two figures in the middle. One of the figures is wearing a red coat and brandishing a flask of what can only be moonshine, and the other is smoking a pipe and swinging in a circle on the arm of the other.


This painting has been hanging in my house for literally 20 years. The best part is that up until I was 18 years old, I thought that it was an interpretive painting of Jesus and his disciples. I assumed that Jesus was the one dancing in the red coat (he seemed to be the most well-liked one in the bunch), and the other, John, his closest confidante.
Most people that I tell this story to laugh at the impossibility of the entire thing--the setting, the bootleg alcohol, the time in history--and tell me that it is funny how I was so blind to the actual theme of the painting for so many years. However, the first time I told my dad about my original interpretation, he looked at it for a couple of seconds, laughed and said "I like to think that that's exactly what Jesus and his disciples were like."
I like to think that, too.