Self Portrait: Good Friday

I plan to submit three self portraits for the ECVA Call "Portraits of the Self", and, oddly, this might be my favorite because it feels more like me than the others.   

It is a tough thing when a self portrait reveals something about yourself that you do not see every day.  I guess it means that when we approach a mirror, we must arrange our expressions to suit what we want to see.  But  unarranged, as we wander through this life, others see what we think we hide.  My eyes startle me, revealing in little digits scattered across space a puzzled soul dying of thirst.  It was not planned, but how appropriately passionate for Good Friday. 

The cross I wear in this image was planned.  The original of the digital painting from which this threshold was made has a pendant, not a cross, around my neck.  But since it is Good Friday, the holiest day of the Christian year, I wear a cross to observe the day.  This may be all that is left of my faith on this great and terrible holy day when Jesus, too, asked God why he had been foresaken.   Closer to home, Mother Teresa, feeling abandoned by God, continued to believe by force of will.  She would understand the gesture and approve.