Smoke and mirrors

Ioan Toma 

The last one. 🙂

In fact is based on a well-known metaphor (see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_and_mirrors ) transposed on the spiritual plane: the smoke of our pride / ego / selfishness does not allow us to see the God’s reality reflected like in a mirror in the saints’ lives.

As an aside, in my mother tongue (romanian) a word which means pride is „înfumurat” which literally means „inside of smoke”.

Of course, the real environment doesn’t have to do too much with pride. Rather the contrary: It was taken at a Divine Liturgy in a chapel (St. Demetrios) where is a window right above the head of the priest (not seen in the left). The rays of the sun combined with the incense’s smoke gave this stunning effect over the deacon’s head.