PAINTINGS, POEMS, AND PEOPLE IN A PANDEMIC [M, 10-12-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

PAINTINGS, POEMS, AND PEOPLE IN A PANDEMIC  [M, 10-12-20]

We have a friend whose grandparents came to the US from Europe a century or so ago. They had a relative in Europe who worked as a housekeeper and babysitter for a young, unknown artist. One week he told her he was short of money, but he was able to pay her the five dollars he owed, or she could have one of his paintings. She had seen his paintings. She was no fool, so she said, “I’ll take the five dollars, Mr. Chagall.”

I suspect that the one he was going to give her was the one that sold for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2017. Of course, in her lifetime, it probably would have brought only 10 or 15 million.

Marc Chagall’s paintings are of people, sort of…and horses, sort of…sometimes horse heads on people, and… well, I just don’t get much from his paintings.

I don’t get much from this pandemic, either, but I’m pretty sure this pandemic is like Chagall’s paintings—more meaning and significance there than is obvious at first.

I think of that as I read poems in the morning. Some have too much meaning. They’re like being hit with a hammer. Others are obscure, but there is meaning—something that touches the spirit--if we dig deeper, listen with more focus.

At this point, I should tell you what deeper meanings I have gotten from this pandemic, but so far, it’s more like the hammer whack on the head.

I have learned something via the enforced isolation from people, though: people can be either a means of grace or an escape from grace. Being forced to stay away from people, I realize how often I use people as a shield against God rather than allowing them to be a conduit of God.

That’s especially tempting for people in the “helping” professions, I think. I am guiding, counseling, teaching, healing these people, so they are my clients, not my messengers from God. My action is all going toward them rather than from them.

Being on my own now, most of the time, I have to confront God “just as I am.” That’s not always pleasant, but it’s productive.

Well, let’s just leave it at this. If someone offers you a Chagall painting for a week’s work, take it, even if you don’t understand it.

John Robert McFarland