A Scalet Conglomerate of Coagulants

Blood

This may seem a strange topic for me to write on. But rest assured that I'm not really being morbid, just inquisitive. I keep getting cuts on my hands you see, either while working at Biola or here at home, so I've been experiencing blood once more in my life.

It's strange how little you see of it for awhile. When you're a kid you see it all the time. A skinned knee or elbow, a myriad of scratches from falling in a rosebush, dropping something on you toe, etcetera. But in this more adult world I seem to have stumbled into blood seems less constant. When you see it most it's time for extreme worry. Like in car accidents down at the corner of your street.

But as I said, I've been able to experience it this last month without needing the extreme worry for life that seems so often to accompany the sight nowadays.

It gets everywhere. You think you've washed it all off, but no. There's always one spot more that you haven't seen where it's dried. It seems to have an amazing knack for getting into the grooves of your hands.

It's pretty. Thicker than wine, but with so much more depth. Thinner than paint, but with so much more colour. You can almost see the water in the blood trying to escape and the coagulants trying to close up and protect the moment it's freed from the vein. Amazing stuff. And really really pretty. Liquid jewels created by God to protect and heal.

But when it's separated from the body, puddling or dripping on something other than skin... it's so sad. It serves no purpose but to speak of pain. It looks so mournful.

One art form that really seems to capture blood well is anime. I'm sure I've been influenced by it in my thinking.

For suffering there are just huge blotches of red drawn. Ex: a bent figure clutching their chest, a large and very liquid red puddle at their feet. It hurts just looking at them.

For sharp pain there are the sprays of blood from an open wound. Ex: a cut from a sword strike, either a thin spray of scarlet or (for really violent actions) a large fountain-like spray. It brings to mind the sharpness of the pain felt from a wound.

And then there's the most pretty kind. It's so rare, but beautiful. There is the kind that tries to show the purity and innocence of the person whose blood is being spilt. Let us say that once more the wound is done with a sword (perhaps it was a mis-stroke of some sort.) We will see the blade after it has passed through: bloodless but for perhaps a single drop at the tip. A look of despair will cross some one's face, either the person holding the sword or some onlooker. The one who has been cut will just look surprised and a little sad. A single drop of dark blood will well from the wound and fall away (oh so slowly!) As it falls the dark red droplet will curl and transform: it's motion will be drawn out and slow, sometimes the artist will even go so far as to have it become a butterfly like shape which slowly and with smooth reluctance flutters down to the ground to break into a dozen small droplets on the earth. I think the most beautiful version of this I ever saw was done with something very close to watercolours. It was amazing!

This last one (my favourite portrayal of bleeding) (golly that sounds strange!) seems to be the least realistic in a physical sense: blood does not make everything slow-motion. Blood does not become a butterfly and flutter to the ground. Violins do not always play when you bleed. But I still think there's something to it.

It may have to do with how immersed I am in the Biblical ideals of blood. It may have to do with my personal belief in those ideals. From the time I was a child I knew that blood was something special. After all, blood shaped my grandfather's life, and through him mine.

He was a pagan at first. Well, apparently for a good while he was. He knew the scriptures, had a good deal of instruction in them. But he was not convinced. How can blood was away sin?

Anyway, one day he was working in his garden and he cut his hand on accident. Apparently it was deep, for the blood welled all over the place.

If you've ever worked in a garden you know how dirty hands can really get. Dirt under your nails, in the grooves of your palms, working into you callouses, sneaking it's way up past your elbows...

Anyway, as Grandpa sat there looking at the blood welling from his palm and getting all over the place he realized that the blood was washing away all the dirt. Beneath the blood his hands were clean. And in the same way whoever was under that curtain of Christ's blood was clean as well.

A most clever and amazing bit of this is that when he went into the house shortly after (inspiration being great, but fainting from blood loss not desirable... after all, he WAS bleeding freely enough to wash his hands clean) and washed all of the blood off the cut was healed. As easily as that. Washed in blood, and finally healed of your wounds.

It's because of this ideal of blood that I like the latter anime. No, it's not a purely Christian view. It does not endow blood with amazing spiritually cleansing qualities. But it does hold to the beauty that is to be found in it. And that I appreciate.

Here's to the Black Rood, most honoured of all trees!

-Josh