Happy Birthday Seth

Today is Seth's birthday. He would be 37 today. In honor of his birthday I am posting a present, one that he gave me, rather than one someone gave him. He got so that he really didn't want people to give him presents anyway. He kept trying to get rid of everything in his life that was not strictly useful.

But this is a present he made for me, I would say around 1998. I don't usually ask for things for Christmas or birthdays. In general I believe that gifts should be from the heart of the giver, and not demands from the recipient. But nevertheless, that Christmas I told Seth that all I really wanted was a picture by him of Moses turning his rod into a snake in front of the pharaoh of Egypt and all his magicians. Pharoah's magicians then turn their rods into snakes too, but Moses' snake eats theirs. It's a great story, and part of what I teach every year to sixth graders in my Sunday School class. He was annoyed at my request because he thought I was underhandedly trying to make him read the Bible. I did want him to read the Bible, especially that part, but mostly because I wanted him to like it. I thought he would say, "Wow, this is great stuff!" which it is. On the other hand, that picture really was the present I desired most from him.

Loving son that he was, he drew the scene for me. Not in a perfunctory way, either. He put his usual whole imagination into it. It came out quite different from what I expected. I kind of pictured more of a long shot, with a bigger view of the room. This intimate scene is delicious, with the expressions of horror and surprise in both faces and body language, the patterns everywhere: in the cloth, pot, the palm leaf, the sandal crossstraps, turbans, even arm hair, and the lovely graphic design of the whole image. I love it.