I received an email today from a dear friend. It's an article in a church's newsletter, written by their new rector (priest in charge). This letter to a congregation from their new leader is a beautifully written personal letter... full of vulnerability, memories, and risk. This article struck a chord with me because I am a painter... I have left murals in every town I've lived in over the last fifteen or so years. I know that, one day, if not already, my murals will be covered up but my memories of what was will always be. As we prepare, over the next few months, to move to Baltimore, Maryland, I cannot help but feel sad that this chapter of our lives is coming to an end... my time in ministry here, with the life-long friends that I have made... the work I've seen God do, right before my eyes... the growth I've seen in my family - mentally, emotionally, physically, and (most importantly) spiritually... the growth and learning that I have undergone, in a place I never expected to meet God.
It WAS good... it IS good... it WILL BE good... and in my memories, it will always be. Many have come before me, laying the foundation of the things I've experienced... many have walked with me through this path of my journey.... and many will come after me building upon the additions that my presence here left in the book.
I'll be journaling today... but this article has me really thinking... and grieving.
Until later...
~Sara +
Here's a copy of the letter, reprinted with permission, changing any identifying details, in an effort to respect the privacy and vulnerability of the parish and the priest.
Dear Family of God,
This week, I am reminded of an old memory. It is one of me, a baby on my back, standing at a wall for long hours, painting. Early in my adult life, for a portion of it anyway, I worked as a freelance muralist.
I drove around in my Chevy Nova, which itself was a bucket of memories banged about all four sides, carrying a playpen in the backseat and a load of paints inside a trunk held closed by a bungie cord looped to a crumpled bumper. But, oh, what came out of that trunk: Gerber jars full of acrylic latex that translated into dancing bears and roller-skating rabbits, which in turn translated into dollars for diapers and more Gerber jars.
I painted all over town, children's murals mostly, first in the suburbs and then for upwardly mobile urban families, finally even a couple of the city's "first families." Sometimes, those murals took on dimension, as I also sewed plushies that could be plucked by small hands from their "scenes" and hugged. I painted things that I knew I would want to remember, after doors closed behind the artist for the last time. So, I was careful to take pictures, baby still on my back.
Those residential jobs eventuated in some commercial ones. Child- and family-related businesses provided bigger walls, longer after-hours in lonely stores and shops, a baby now curled in some silent corner. One business, the last business, was my opus. A kind of Disney-angelo of the Safari, I painted for weeks on a 3000 sq. ft. mural that wrapped 3 long walls. The scene incorporated swinging apes in palms, giraffes stretching their long necks over great hedges of blooms, and elephants squirting waters below cascading falls. The product was something to remember.
The business opened, families with children poured in to see the jungle, but the payment to the artist was not forthcoming. It never was to come, and the young mother with a baby on her back and the sad Chevy Nova never had the power to pursue it. Some months later, I drove by the business to look in through the plate glass and find that it had been sold, my opus painted over in a solid Pepto-pink. The previous owner, I learned, had moved to another state, where my studies were reportedly given to another muralist to recreate. I never had the stomach to investigate, and I never had the stomach to paint another mural.
What I had left were my photos. These were put in a massive book of sticky pages once such a convenient way to pin down memories. It was my portfolio, my only concrete evidence of an era that would not be repeated. It represented sacrifices, untold physical labor, hours on my feet with my arms above my head, days driving around in a car that had given up on blowing anything close to cold air. It represented rooms that I would never again enter, environments I had created, inside which I could imagine children and families living, learning, laughing-- one day to be painted over with something like Pepto-pink. That book represented payments collected for diapers and formula, and the largest payment that never would be.
Then, one day, a thief came and took even that book.
What is left is this story, and the ghosts of dancing bears and skating rabbits. These things, and the fact that it was, it all was-- and it was good: the children, now surely beyond painting nurseries for their own children; the parents now grands, satisfied that they did something magical for their once-little ones, laughing; the families who once went into that business to enter a jungle, who now enter virtual jungles in HD. It happened. Paint happens, and then it disappears under the layers of the passing years.
As I tell this story, I feel much like I pulled a decayed plushie from one of those walls, so that I can hug it again. And, tears surprise me.
This past Saturday, the vestry met in retreat. Part of that retreat involved a walk about the church campus, to open a massive book with memories stuck to every page, to realize that there are some rooms that have become ghosts of what they once were, and to be surprised by tears. The buildings and rooms are the portfolio of the parish, the concrete evidence of eras that cannot be repeated. They represent sacrifices, untold physical labor, hours on many feet, many generous arms raised above the heads of the dedicated. They represent rooms into which the People of God could enter, environments they created for living, learning, laughing-- painted over again and again, each layer disappearing under the passing years.
The story is something that happened, no less valued and valuable because a time has passed. What is left is this story, and the fact that it was, it all was-- and it was good: the children, now beyond this nursery; the parents now grands, satisfied that they did something faithful for their once-little ones, laughing; the families who once entered their own experience of church, who now invite new families to enter an experience of church they can call their own.
Your Vestry members were there. They helped fill that massive book, sticky pages covered with the images of a story you created together. Last Saturday in retreat, they decided to keep painting the parish's living history. It will be an opus. New years are coming, new eras, a new story that will happen, and it will be good-- because something valued and valuable happened.
After my own eras, I realize, to live is to paint. It is time again to stand at a wall, and undertake a mural.
In the Name of the Artist of Life,
- Mtr. G.
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