Garbage Crucifixion

Larchmont, NY

Photographer’s Statement:

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering…

[B]y his wounds we are healed.

He was assigned a grave with the wicked… though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. [Isaiah 53:3-5, 9]

It because of this scripture that a setting among garbage in which all items (with the exception of the broken corpus) were found at the location is appropriate and fitting. I held onto the broken corpus to use in just the right setting. When I found the red heart, I knew this was the location.

Even though they humiliated and scourged him, nailed him to the cross (formed by the discarded heart, CD (which also serves as a halo to illustrate the impending resurrection and resulting universal salvation), cup cover, and lower part of the corpus), opened his side with a lance and assigned his grave to be with the wicked (symbolized by the abundance of dried leaves and litter) – they could not break his love (symbolized by the intact heart that has retained its color and is beginning to break away from the cross – a sign that death has been conquered and every grave will be shattered) simply because "God is love!"[1 John 4:8 and 16]

The background colors and textures represent the universe and eternity.

Concluding Haiku:

With body broken,
He cried, “Father, forgive them!”
God’s love saves us all!