Icons of Christ: the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever

I've been reminded over the past few days of how easily institutions can fail to meet our expectations.  In the midst of those musings, I was reminded of him who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  In the idleness of my mind, I began to cast around for some tangible object which could be for me an icon of him who will never leave me or forsake me.  I sought some common and yet constant reminder which models if you will consistancy and unchanging functional goodness so completely that it might become for me a picture of something much greater than itself.  I imagined some Platonic "shadow" which might point me to the true form of all that is constant and true: Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour; and my Master.

Barbour's Beaufort Jacket

As I pondered these things, I decided to retire to the TV Lounge and wax my old Barbour shooting jacket.  When Rebecca surprized me with it a few years back, it was right out of a fashonplate, glistening dark green with a brown courdoury collar, brass zippers, the trademark tartan lining, and a quilted removable liner which could double as a vest underneath a tweed or herringbone jacket.  Now, it is well worn.  With its broken game pocket zipper and the odd tear or hole here or there, it is a veteran of many hunts.  Rebecca says it stinks and tells me that I ought not to wear it, save to the barn or afield.  I prefer to think of it as a bit "birdy," and take some rather unseemly pride in the fact that it marks me apart from those shooters, hunters, and horsey types that only roll out for the opening day of the season or for the odd horse or dog show.

And so I sat down with my old friend and a very overpriced can of "Barbour Original Formula Wax  Thornproof Dressing."  It took two full episodes of Inspector Barnaby and DS Scott in "Midsomer Murders" to repair last year's tears and to wax the jacket, with special attention to the seams.  But now it glistens with the soft gleam of fresh wax and hangs at the base of the stairs with my faded old Orvis Crusher Fedora, ready for yet another season.  It will keep me absolutely dry without the stifling odor of manmade fibers or the collected heat of a plastic or rubber shell.  Like all Barbour coats, it is cut for the specific sport for which it was designed, and I can swing right to left on a high pass  pheasant as if I were wearing only a light shirt.  My Barbour Beaufort shooting jacket has all of the function and style it had the day we bought it at Mad River Outfitters in Columbus.  It is just about as consant and true as any physical thing I own, even after these years of hard use on the farm and in the field. 

Now, when I look around me and see so many of the things I love passing into history, I look down at my barn coat and smile, because some things- the truly important things- never change.  It may seem strange to some of my gentle readers to think of a shooting coat as an icon of the Christ.  But there are many things in this great world which he can and does use to remind us of his faithfulness and changelessness.  I will never willingly give up the beautiful hand written Icon of Christ that cousin Helen brought back for me from Kiev.  And I doubt that my good friends at Holy Cross Carpathian Orthodox Church will be hanging up a Barbour jacket on the iconostasis anytime soon.  But when I don my faithful old friend on a cold and rainy winter's day, I will always think of Jesus, who saved me, and keeps me, and who will come again to receive me as his own.

Jesus Christ, by Heinrich Hoffman
My Constant in the Midst of Change