Tag: Visual arts

Cultural Hope to Living Reality

Published on by Marilyn1 Comment
Wheelchair seating in a theater (i.e. giving a...

The painting was two feet wide and at least three and a half feet long. It hung on a wall in an art gallery, dominant despite sharing the space with several other paintings. While there were others that had caught my eye, this one in particular was striking.

It was a picture of an art gallery with a painting of Jesus on the cross on the central wall. Looking up at the painting, hope and longing pouring from the canvas was a man in a wheelchair. The painting was called “Cultural Hope”.

It was a moment of awe as we in the studio stood, invited in to this private moment between Jesus and a wheelchair-bound man. It was reminiscent of stories long ago where in a crowded room a paralyzed man was healed – only this man was still bound.

I wanted to stand there forever. Was it the longing in the man’s eyes? Was it the distinctive connection between the two. Was it that moment of shared suffering between cross and wheelchair that shouted of pain and only whispered of redemption?

I walked away strangely challenged and moved. While this man’s wheelchair was visual, my wheelchair is in my mind. While his paralysis was obvious, mine is hidden. But I, like the man in the painting, have my times of looking at the cross shouting with pain and hearing only the whisper of redemption.

But the whisper compels me, telling me to wait, reminding me that the cross was replaced by an empty tomb; that my painting goes beyond “cultural hope” to a living reality.

They Were Picture-Perfect

Published on by Marilyn16 Comments

They sat on a sandy beach with a calm ocean behind them, deep blue reflecting a cloudless sky. They were picture-perfect.

Four girls and two boys. They wore khaki colored pants, bleach white shirts. They sat like seagull sentries guarding the sand — their parents, blonde haired and blue-eyed, proudly off to the side watching over them with possessive, proud eyes.

They were picture-perfect.

I sighed as I stared absently at the picture on my refrigerator, held on by a magnet from some unknown realtor.

Why Can’t We Look Like That? I grumbled silently.

When I pull out a family picture, people think I’ve pulled out a picture of the Ramones or a picture of a group of actors auditioning for an independent film. Why do some people have ‘it’ and we don’t? Furthermore, why do we have to fight every time we take a family picture? Why can’t WE be picture perfect?

There. I admitted it aloud. It was yet another area where I felt my background as a third culture kid and my insecurity as an adult came into play. I didn’t know how to do family pictures. One year when we had only three children we went to Sears to get a family picture taken. This was a big deal for me. The result? We got a picture with Micah’s head bowing toward the ground, all you could see was the baby fuzz on an otherwise bald head — so small was he, he couldn’t hold his head by himself.  When someone asked me why I had picked that one to blow up into an 8 by 11 inch portrait, I shrugged. “I don’t know” I said, shaking my head! “I guess it’s because Cliff and I looked good and we knew that our years of looking good were coming to an end.”

But it’s far more than any TCK insecurity. It’s about expectations and reality. It seemed that all of our family stuff would come out in pictures while other families were able to keep the pictures happy. I had expectations of these family pictures; expectations of this family, and they were not being met.

Expectations confuse reality. Expectations yield discontent. Expectations kill relationships.

That truth pounds in my ears.

Family pictures, beautiful as they are, mask much of what it means to be a family. The real story comes not through pictures, but through day by day life together. Those huge fights, that you think will never be redeemed? They bear the stamp of grace when forgiveness and restoration happens. The ordinary of life seen through laundry, dirty dishes, dust, and pans that need washing? That’s where patience and discipline grow.

There’s so much more to family pictures then the gloss and color; then how coordinated we are and how beautiful we look. No matter how picture-perfect in the studio, every family bears the marks of a broken world. And that’s why most families prefer the candid shots, sending those picture-perfect shots off to others.

As I pass by the refrigerator again – I look one more time at the picture-perfect family. Can I accept it for what it is? A beautiful picture of a lovely family — a family that has its own stuff, put aside for a day where beach waves, blue sky, khaki and white could work its magic with the help of a skilled photographer.

Because there’s no such thing as a picture-perfect family.

There's No Such Thing as a Picture-Perfect Family!..

“Cultural Hope”

Published on by Marilyn9 Comments

Wheelchair seating in a theater (i.e. giving a...

The painting was two feet wide and at least three and a half feet long. It hung on a wall in an art gallery, dominant despite sharing the space with several other paintings. While there were others that had caught my eye, this one in particular was striking.

It was a picture of an art gallery with a painting of Jesus on the cross on the central wall. Looking up at the painting, hope and longing pouring from the canvas was a man in a wheelchair. The painting was called “Cultural Hope”.

It was a moment of awe as we in the studio stood, invited in to this private moment between Jesus and a wheelchair-bound man. It was reminiscent of stories long ago where in a crowded room a paralyzed man was healed – only this man was still bound.

I wanted to stand there forever. Was it the longing in the man’s eyes? Was it the distinctive connection between the two. Was it that moment of shared suffering between cross and wheelchair that shouted of pain and only whispered of redemption?

I walked away strangely challenged and moved. While this man’s wheelchair was visual, my wheelchair is in my mind. While his paralysis was obvious, mine is hidden. But I, like the man in the painting, have my times of looking at the cross shouting with pain and hearing only the whisper of redemption.

But the whisper compels me, telling me to wait, reminding me that the cross was replaced by an empty tomb; that my painting goes beyond “cultural hope” to a living reality.