The Earth is the Lord's Footstool
© 1997 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with acrylic
9" x 11 ¾" x 15"
Adaptations from the 13th c. Ebstorf Map, and Last Judgment carvings from Autun Cathedral
Our modern worldview can be rather medieval, in the usage that means backwards or underdeveloped. Although we attempt to be cosmopolitan and pluralistic, we often keep our universe small, define the divine to protect our own interests, and get hostile when our territory is invaded. Some of us have a rather flat world, too. This odd porcelain footstool is “upholstered” with a medieval world map, taking literally the Biblical equations of “the earth is the Lord's footstool.” So what's below this map, this world?-- underworld images of the damned, as carved into the footstool's legs. Nobody did hell better than the French Romanesque.
Early Christian images of God were majestic but were often severe. Enthroned Majestas Domini show a mean, vindictive being whose main job was judgment and damnation. Knowledge of the world was confined to a literal interpretation of scripture, which obliterated the more advanced cartography of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The medieval universe consisted of only three continents, according to the repopulation of the earth after the great flood. Noah's youngest son Ham, who saw the nakedness of his father, was cursed and condemned to slavery, and relegated to the continent of Africa...hence the horrible rationalization for enslavement of Africans over the centuries.
In medieval times, space was metaphorically modified, with the Holy Land enlarged and oriented to the east. Early medieval maps drawn in the simple "T-0" configuration held onto this geography, and by the 13th century more elaborate, encyclopedic maps called mappaemundi ("cloth of the world") detailed Biblical places and events. Large ones such as the Ebstorf Map were fine works of art which served as altarpieces. My pastiche of the Ebstorf Map and the "T-O" maps is glazed on top of the footstool. Here the head, hands and feet of Christ surround the world as it was known then--it was Christ's body, with Jerusalem as his navel.
On the footstool's legs are adaptations of four carvings from Autun Cathedral, where a full panoply of scenes served as a visual catalog of sin and punishment. Here, two legs show the weighing of souls, one by the Archangel Michael and another by a bony demon who tries to tip the scales. Another leg depicts the Mouth of Hell, a trap door sea monster who chews up the naked damned and swallows them into the fiery pit. The fourth leg shows demonic fingers plucking off a sinner's head. R-rated for violence and nudity, this public art. It makes you wonder what psychological and spiritual damage has accumulated over the centuries from such teachings, and how much of it we still carry.
The poem begins with a sassy argument with the vengeful, abstract God. Then it turns to greet the servant God, the God who can be known, as exemplified by the specific act of footwashing. Several scriptures alluded to in the poem are:
(Footstools) Ezekiel 43:7, Isaiah 66:1-2, Psalm 99:5, Matthew 5:35
(Sons of Noah) Genesis (-10
(Jerusalem the center of the world) Ezekiel 5:5
(Separating sheep and goats) Matthew 25:31
(Weighing of souls) Job 31:6, Daniel 5:27, Proverbs 16:11
(Hell Mouth) Job 41:1-34, Psalm 104:25-26, Isaiah 27:1
(Not judging but saving the world) John 12:47
(Footwashing) John 13:1-17
The Earth is the Lord's Footstool
Legs are Hell
especially when you’ve
got the gout
so put your feet up
and stay awhile,
God, the earth is
your footstool.
Noah's three sons
repopulated your flat
medieval body, then
somebody justified slavery,
defined the world and
belly-buttoned Jerusalem
ever waiting for the
Holy Roman Emperor
to find his new clothes
all laid out on an
Ottonian ottoman
upholstered with mappaemundi.
Your separating sheep from goats,
your weighing of souls,
pinching off heads and
gorging the hellmouth--
surely you're sitting on pins up there.
There is nothing at all comfortable
about thrones.
When you come not to judge
the world but to save it,
Step down into that footstool,
and kindly rub my wet feet.
I may not understand you
but then I'll know who you are.