imageI recommend an article by Jim Goldsworthy in yesterday’s Cumberland Times-News. It is called an American Dream and that is what its about. It is one of those “feel good” articles that caught my attention because of the mention of the shroud. Enjoy:

My grandfather also took to painting-by-the-numbers, and I have his rendition of The Last Supper. He was a man of boundless faith.

The History Channel had a program about forensic artists and scientists who worked with the Shroud of Turin to produce an image of what Jesus would have looked like if the Shroud is authentic. (I accept that possibility.)

It so closely resembled the image of Jesus in my grandfather’s painting that I got a sudden and shivering case of the chills. They lasted for quite some time and still return now and then when I look at that painting.

The night my grandfather died, Grandmother emerged “utterly transfigured” — as my father later described it — from my room, where he and the other grownups had put her on my bed when she went into shock.

He said “She was absolutely radiant,” and that it was the one most remarkable things he ever witnessed. I remember that night and agree.

She said, “Jesus came to me and told me that ‘Dad’ is all right.” We believed her.
When I think of The American Dream, I think of my grandfather. A first-generation native-born American, he left the coal mines as a young man to open the barbershop he operated in Keyser for almost half a century.

Although he couldn’t read or write (Grandmother taught him how to sign his name), he could count money and was a highly intelligent man whose education was as thorough as he could make it — even though its form was different from most.

Full article: Cumberland Times News : The American Dream? Here’s just what it is