Episode 4: Missouri
On this trip, I ended up taking more pictures than in past excursions, but when I went back to look at them, not a lot of them feel fit for posting. Some of them were doomed by poor photography skills, but others were just not as interesting as they seemed in the moment. For example, I took a picture of a paper weight that Sam Butcher’s son had given him, which is kept on display behind glass. When I was there, it seemed like the kind of thing you’d want to take a picture of, but that’s not true.
In heaven, children ride fish.
The gigantic mural in the center of the main chamber of the chapel. A guide explained to me that this mural includes the only non-child in any of the works of their paintings, which is Jesus welcoming the children to heaven. He’s kind of in the background, and the guide didn’t seem to include the birds as “non-children.”
I don’t want to be a dick, and I’m sure it was hard to paint the ceiling, but when I heard that Samuel Butcher had set out to make his own Sistine Chapel, I really expected a little more than this. There’s a whole lot of empty space up there. If he’d never brought up Michelangelo, I’d probably find this ceiling impressive, but it’s a victim of it’s own hype.
Apparently children can get married in heaven, which I don’t feel great about.
Hands down, this was my favorite guy in the whole place. I struggled with the implications of how this cow has the same sad eyes as the children, but I doubt there’s a larger point to it.
As you leave the gift shop/entry vestibule, you encounter this memorial. It doesn’t quite fit in to its surroundings, and I found it kind of jarring. I don’t like the implications of the child wearing a fireman’s helmet that fits.
It’s kind of strange that Princess Diana isn’t depicted as a child, but it’s also weird that she is shown with two children, neither of which are her own children. There’s such an unclear continuity or sense of rules to the figurine universe.
