Chapel of the Holy Cross

For those of you who have read my murder mystery novel, Evil in the Mirror, and don't believe in the existence of the Atomic Crucifix that once adorned the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona, let there be no doubt.

The pictures posted on this blog do not do it justice. My memory of the crucifix is as vivid now as it was in 1962 when I first gazed up at the crucifix as a young man not yet twenty-one years of age. I wondered why Jesus looked like a black man? In my young mind, Jesus certainly wasn't black. He was a blond- haired, blue-eyed Caucasian! It wasn't until much later in life that I learned that because Jesus was Jewish, he probably had dark skin, brown hair and dark brown eyes. You think?


Why was Jesus' body stretched and elongated, looking like it was melting from some unseen flame? Jesus looked like he had been in an nuclear blast, thus the name, Atomic Christus.

Is the urban legend true about the mysterious disappearance of the Atomic Christ? I really don't know, all I know is that when I again visited the chapel, only the rusty metal used to attach the crucifix remained embedded in the large concrete cross that made up the south window wall and altar.

Personally, I wish the Atomic Christus was still where it belongs in the chapel. After all, it probably was a truer depiction of the crucified Christ than all the silly crucifixes I had seen before or since. Blond hair and blue eyes indeed! I wonder who thought up that one?

I'm just saying,

Mittster