Ascension Day

Today is Ascension Day.

Today I went for a "female cousins-party", which we have had every year on this day for the past three years or so. This year it was held at the home of one of my sousins who is a head-stewardess at Icelandair. Her husband is a former head-pilot to the Iceland Coastguard, but he has had to retire due to heart-failure and therefore not meeting the very strict regulations of health set for the pilots.

They have a very beautiful home, very artistic and tastefully ornated with souveniers from all over the world, mostly Africa, it seemed to me, some South-American too. Mixed with luxurius furniture and exquisite paintings by our most adored Icelandic painters in the past this gives a very refined overall impression. The paintings come from my grandfathers collection, he was a great friend and promoter of many of those artists. I understand that my cousin did a lot of the work on the house herself, carpenting, painting and tiling, she is a very efficient woman with excellent taste.

No wonder that their home has been featured in the Icelandic equvalient to "Homes and Gardens" and such magazines, the "Hús and Hýbýli".

Back home in my humble home in a tiny rented flat I can´t help but feeling just a tiny twinge of envy. But I comfort myself by the words that I came across just now surfing the net with my companion Google, in a sermon published on the net by my former parish priest in a small village in North-Iceland,(now principal-priest to the Reykjavík Lutheran Cathedral/Dómkirkjan), citing an Icelandic poet:
"God is in the spirit and in the truth, not in your house and your lodgings.."

"Ekki við staði og stundir
stíluð er Drottins náð.
Guð er andi og sannleikur – ekki hús og híbýli."

I´m sorry not being able to mention the artist of the painting of the ascension or giving a link to a source of information about it. Ordinarily I make it my rule to try to provide some appropriate information in my blog, as I´m aware of that there exist rules with regard to copyright and knowing that maybe sometimes I´m taking the liberty to reproduce things to this blog where those rules apply.
But in this case there was nothing listed about this painting on the page where I took it from.
But maybe I´ll find somthing about it later and then I can add that information on to this! That´s the beauty of blogging!.