In my Web of April 1st I said here, in answer to a question, that I have an image of the sleeping Buddha on my table. I knew then that the next question was unavoidable, and it has come (Emiliano): Do I have a cross on my office table? I love indiscreet questions.

Yes. A rather special and well loved cross. My travels have their uses. I brought it with me from El Salvador. There I saw many like this and they charmed me. It is a flowery cross. A cross, of course, and the cross is Christianity. Two logs at an angle which speak by themselves and proclaim Christ and redemption for all to know and to see. But this cross has something special I had never seen anywhere else before. It is all full of colours, sharp, live, joyful colours of flowers and birds and houses and trees. It gladdens the sight and livens up the whole room. That is the cross I brought with me from El Salvador. The resurrection cross. The one I keep on my table. I’m seeing it now. I want my devotional images to cheer me up.

If there is a sleeping Buddha, a laughing Buddha (Ho Tien), a dancing Shiva (Nataraj), a Krishna playing the flute (in Vrindavan), a Rama flying with Sita on a flower airplane (Pushpaviman), a Apollo playing the lyre to his Greek devotees, and an Obatala from the Yoruba pantheon getting drunk while creating us…, wouldn’t it be time to think how to liven up a bit our own religious images?