What Would Jesus See

Tim Symonds of Venice, Florida, likes to make tie dye T-shirts. He knows that with tie dye it’s not all under his control. “I have a basic idea of what the shirt’s going to look like,” he says, “but I tell everyone God does the real art work because where the shirt folds and how the dye runs is up to him and it often makes different images.” Recently he unfolded a finished shirt and noticed an image of the Virgin Mary in the center “by the heart.” He’s not alone, another person says, “I saw it and in a split second I knew exactly what it was.” Symonds says the image is making him think hard about his religious beliefs. And no, he hasn’t decided what to do with the shirt yet.

Looking to warm-up to Christmas season, Julie Cooney and her husband were using a chainsaw to cut up some firewood at their home in Danville, Indiana. Suddenly they noticed markings in the middle of a log that they thought looked a lot like an angel. Stopping and looking closer, they were astonished to see that it looked more like the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. “I saw it and I was amazed,” Cooney says, “I took pictures of it quickly. And tried to decide what to do with them. I told them to bring them in the house.” They’ve wisely decided not to burn the logs or cut them any further. Their plan is to display them at the Danville, Indiana, police  department.

A posting on Craigslist from Fresno, CA is offering a dresser with the image of Jesus Christ in the wood grain. They’ve had the dresser for 28 years and didn’t discover the image until they moved it recently. They’re asking a cool $1million for it but say the proceeds will go to families in need to help with housing, healthcare and education.

Brian Trambowicz of North Providence, Rhode Island, was driving by the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary recently when he noticed a silhouette on a cross at the top of the church’s bell tower that amazingly looked like the Virgin Mary. “I said to myself, ‘did I see what I thought I saw?’,” Trambowicz remarked. “Then goose pimples came out all over my body.”

He kept driving. A couple of blocks away he saw a sign in front of a florist’s shop that read: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Cue Twilight Zone theme.

Since then other members of the church have seen the image, some even claiming to see baby Jesus being cradled in his mother’s arms. They can’t help but think that it has something to do with this year being the 100th anniversary of the church.

“I’ve driven by here 5,000 times and never seen it,” Trambowicz told the Valley Breeze newspaper. Well, you know what they say, the 5,001st time is the charm.

Allister Bevege of Sydney, Australia, was hiking through the bush in Kakadu National Park with a friend when they saw the sunlight hitting a stone cliff and creating an image. “We thought it looked like the Virgin Mary,” Bevege said. It appeared on the Bardedjilidji Sandstone Walk near the Arnhem Land border at Cahills Crossing last Monday as the mid-afternoon sun hit the face of the cliff . A tourist from England, Jim Youngs, when told about it said he thought it looked more like an alien than the Blessed Virgin but, “That’s f***ing cool. I’ll go see it, definitely. One hundred percent.”