H.

A dear friend of mine sent me this email a little while back, I stumbled upon it today and thought it was still very pertinent to my own life as well as some very close friends of mine at the moment.

Enthusiasm and a Little Faith.

A lot of people think that Michaelangelo and Da Vinci were peers, compadres, even friends. The truth is that they were not...

When Michelangelo was a young stonecarver, toiling in relative obscurity, only known to a few ardent supporters, Da Vinci was a much adored, well established, widely known and incredibly affluent figure. The stories say when Da Vinci would galantly (and meticuliously)walk down the streets of Italy, surrounded by his throngs of admirers and hangers on, the roads would be closed by the sheer magnitude and pagentry of the occasion. Onlookers would state that his countenance almost charged for each noble step he took, for each brush stroke he laid down....Michelangelo, on the other hand, was an ever hard working,
commoner...covered in dust from his stones and a shuck of disshelved hair -- a tribute to his reckless abandon. Yet his foward looking nature kept his feet on the ground, married to the idea that someday, he too would be known as a great artist. He was 20 when he began his true career with his sculptures of BACCHUS and the PIETA...

By 25 he had surpassed all the sculptors of his day....

In a fresco at the Sistine I, in the Last Judgement, (an old man of 60, at this point) Michelangelo painted St. Batholomew and his well know hide of human skin, resting in his hands... but instead of the Saint's face Michelangelo painted his own face...

...to me, this was a tribute to his undying belief that suffering was vital
for true faith...real belief.
Keep the faith.
Plan for the future.
H.