It was a quiet day. We walked hand in hand through a park where a plein air artists captured on canvas palm trees swaying in the slight breeze. We had escaped the last gasp of winter and headed to Florida to spend time with friends of the heart. The temperature was in the eighties. Perfect. The turquoise water and pale blue sky caused me to think of other places and times. A walk through a Spanish plaza while a band played softly and the gleaming sands of a beach in Thailand not far from our apartment emerged from memory.
After plunging more money into the parking meter, we headed back to the Tampa Bay Fine Art Museum. We are museum people, my husband and I. The morning had found us strolling through several rooms housing art from centuries past. The afternoon held a leisurely lunch at an outdoor table under an umbrella and the promise of art from the Baroque period.
It was in the third room of the display that I was arrested. My eyes lit upon a painting that caused me to catch my breath and stumble toward it—a portrait of Saint Andrew. This painting by Glovan Battista Gaulli, circa 1680, had an emotional depth that stunned me into silent wonder. The Saint is embracing the X-shaped cross upon which he will be crucified. His fingers are wrapped around the rough wood, as if he is contemplating another time and place.
After a few minutes I returned to the rest of the paintings, but at the end of my amble, I asked the museum guard if I could take a picture of a few paintings.
He said, “Of course.”
Crossing the room of Baroque paintings, I paused in front of the masterpiece of a man going to his death. His face was luminous and his eyes focused on the rough wood of the cross before him. Eyes closed the Apostle seemed at peace. He knew what was before him, pain, release, and then standing in the presence of true love. A love no one has ever felt on earth but those who had been in the presence of Jesus, the carpenter’s son. Andrew had known that love, a love that turned his world upside down, for God’s love is embodied in the Jesus. It is palpable.
A whisper of air struck my cheek and I turned to see the guard standing beside me.
“Is this your favorite painting here?” he asked.
I slanted my eyes to a painting two spaces away. Illumined by golden light and shadow, two aged males stare to their left. The disciples on the Emmaus Road look with immense concentration to their right. In their faces us astonishment and wonder. When Jesus broke the bread and revealed He had risen and was with them did they cry? My writers mind wanted to compose a scene. I said to the gray-haired man beside me that both paintings held my heart but I was drawn to the hope on Andrew’s face.
He gave a slight shake of his head. “To have such peace when you are facing death.”
I nodded. “Andrew is my favorite disciple because he brought many to the Lord. He was a follower of John the Baptist first. One of our son’s middle names is Andrew and his oldest child is named Andrew.”
As I finished taking a few pictures, the man beside me turned to look into my face. Continuing I said, “I am a Christian. Andrew had radiance because he knew where he was going.”
He said that the picture was his favorite because of the peace it captured. His voice was mellow and tender as if he had just discovered something that brought him joy. As if he had touched his newborn babe for the first time and was in awe.
The encounter with the painting brought us together with its luminance and peace. Did my words reflect the peace our Lord gives? A peace not of this world?
I will praise You, O LORD, among the peoples,
And I will sing praises to You among the nations.
For Your mercy is great above the heavens,
And Your truth reaches to the clouds.
—Psalm 108:3-4 (NKJV)
Have bags will travel should be Jeanette-Marie Mirich’s life’s theme. She movedtwenty-two times before settling in her first home. An Oregonian by birth and who graduated with a B.S. degree in education from Portland State University, Jeanette has swum in the Ligurian Sea, collected shells and sea glass along the Indian Ocean, Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean Oceans, Straits of Malacca, Gulf of Mexico and the Andaman Sea. Her peripatetic lifestyle is courtesy of the U.S. Air Force and her husband’s medical training.
Passionate about needs in the third world after living in Thailand during her husband’s deployment, she has accompanied her husband on dozens of medical mission trips. Mother of three, Grammy to thirteen exceptional grandchildren, she travels from her Kentucky home to an Oregon cabin, scribbling poems and short stories as well as writing novels.
Her first novel, “Happy Christmas, Miss Lawrence’, won second place in the Colorado Independent Publishers’ EVVY awards. Her second novel, ‘Shadow Games,’ received honorable mention. Both novels were published by Stonebridge Publications. Quilting has also captured her heart. She is currently inflicting the love of colors on granddaughters.
Learn more about Jeanette-Marie at jeanette-mariemirich.wordpress.com.
