Northern Illinois has a plethora of very quaint and beautiful small municipalities. I've had the pleasure of living in several of them throughout my life in this State, such as Galena and Elizabeth. One of my favorites is Belvidere, a beautiful City with a vibrant atmosphere situated East of Cherry Valley. One of the most attractive things about these locations is the creative culture.
As I was driving through Belvidere today on an errand, I took notice to one of their community statues that you see in the picture, of heroic police and firemen protecting and helping the vulnerable child, and I could not help but note also the clothing on the statues (in this case, scarfs, which are a seasonal dress).
As humans, we do a lot of things subconsciously, even from our distant past that seems to carry on through evolutionary timelines. In ancient Pagan times, it was not uncommon at all for citizens to clothe statues of their Gods and Heroes during certain festivals or times of year. In Greek culture, you have traditions like Panathenaia, and even if there wasn't a special occasion, one would not have considered it odd to see a Cult cleaning and robing their Cult Image at the beginning of the day.
While the people of the City today may not interpret the act in the same way as ancient man, or even as a religious devotion, I think there's something in our soul that never goes away, that always, in some form, calls out to where we truly came from and where we can never truly separate ourselves. It goes back, I think, to what a Hellenic friend of mine told me a long time ago when we were talking about Greek Christians who still have statues of Greek Gods in their homes, businesses or restaurants. Simply, "It's in their blood."
In the Goodness of the Gods,
I'll see you at the next Herm down the road,
Chris Aldridge.