The Ranchos de Taos Mystery Painting

I went out to the Saint Francis de Asisi Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico (about four miles south of where I sit now). They have this old painting there, completed in 1896 by Henri Ault, a French-Canadian, called "The Shadow of the Cross;" a lifesize portrait of Jesus standing on the banks of the sea of Galilee. It's seven feet tall.
There is a mystery surrounding "The Shadow of the Cross." It glows when the lights around it are extinguished. Ault, the creator of the piece, noticed its glowing character when he chanced upon it one night in his studio.
The first time that I went to view and study the "mystery painting," I had stationed myself in a more or less bouyant dynamic, and two or three gin and tonics later, felt as if I were in a position to truly behold the enigmajesty of the "mystery painting." I traveled there, armed in the custody of my critical thinking cap (an old Northwest Airlines cap I stole from an asshole I used to work for), and my "research jacket" (a fairly nice gray blazer I had just mined from the free-box), and proceeded to commence the reconnaisance mission, the fact-finding voyage, the getting of the scoop, etc., etc.
We pull into the parking lot, extinguish the beers, and figure out the kind of cash we have. Throwing open the doors, and grinning, we saunter on into the exhibit. A tariff of three dollars is expected. Aquiescing, I attempt light-hearted, relatively perverse talk with the nuns working the window. "You can go right in," the most biologically-evolved one commanded, and we shuffled along respectively.
Once inside, we found ourselves in a room filled, wall to wall, with various sterling and apparently gold liturgical artifacts. We shuffled along in front of the display cases bemusedly before being herded into seats to watch an educational film on the building of the church. At the very tail end of the agonizingly-boring documentary, they finally mentioned the mystery painting, and something of its history. It still glowed in the dark in strange ways, such as in an outline of Jesus' torso, head and shoulders, and somehow showed the "shadow" of what looked like a cross held above his left shoulder. The cross did not appear in the actual painting when the lights were on. It was made before Madam Curie discovered radium, before we even had any knowledge of so-called glow in the dark paints.
I shuddered briefly in front of the image but have seen phenomena far more disturbing and bizarre. We were allowed to stand right in front of the painting, and turn the lights on and off at will. The two tourists we were in there with didn't like being in the pitch black with strangers and anomalies, evidently, because they scurried out of there as fast as they could. Of course because of this the nuns waiting outside the door decided that all of us were done examining it and promptly shuffled us out in lieu of the newly-paid patrons.
For a town of 4,500 residents, this odd, religious painting is about as paranormal as things get. Life is simple here. There are no alarms, no surprises, no bum gauntlets to walk through, no dark alleyways, no smog, no Satanists, no muggings, no beeping cars. Just the blue sky, and the mountain. And I honestly find the blue sky and the mountain boring. They don't talk, they don't discern between the general and the particular, they don't enforce or advertise any moral law, and they certainly don't party. Who needs mountains? They're just piles of dirt. I fail to see their importance. They got grandfathered in.
What matters to me? The library. Row after row of human-generated information and ideas. For free. Its always warm there, you'd be an idiot to not score a sack when you want one, and people are generally very gentle, polite, and austere there. What else matters? I don't know. Maybe just writing in this goddamn machine, trying to put together a beautiful sentence or two. And of course all of the beautiful things about life. Like waking up to the charming, cheerful, wittiness, and supple, relaxed flesh of your true love, on an open morning of sunlight and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, fresh pot of coffee brewing and a day at the museum. "Paris in the spring", and all that. But the demons never seem to quit squawking and hooting like a band of depraved, slobbering, hyena-like speed freaks, cackling at each new slip-up in mine and the lives of those around me.