celialowenthal:

This past Sunday, I was briefly at a Swedish Lutheran church for a special Lucia-themed event, it being the Sunday closest to St Lucia Day (today, 12/13).

To say I felt like a Jewish spy is to simplify my often-confused feelings on faith.

It was my old light-up crown that the church’s Lucia was wearing, and yet the discussions of saints made me uncomfortable and an outsider. In the past, I have tried to visually reconcile my dual-religion upbringing by depicting them in concert, together: as a dark-haired girl dressed as Sankta Lucia, a self-portrait lighting a menorah. But in this volatile age and devoid of my personal context, that would be an image of assimilation rather than reconciliation. So I suppose I’ll leave it to you to decide if these girls are lighting the same menorah or not.