Loaves and fishes

I stopped, staring, mouth open.

There, hanging on the wall of Top Drawer, a furniture and décor consignment shop in College Park, were two paintings that once hung on the wall of my home.

I was stunned.

Why were they here, amidst a lot of other paintings, on a painting-crowded wall? I knew I didn’t sell these paintings to Top Drawer.  But to whom did I sell them? Or give them?

Someone who didn’t keep them. Just as I didn’t keep them.

The paintings are a form of sand-art. My former husband Jon bought them on a mission trip to Cuba, a trip I had hoped would change him, would drag him out of the self-inflicted misery of alcoholism and launch him instead into a kingdom of aliveness, of service, of profound health.

He drank on the trip. And brought home two lovely paintings.

The paintings are of fish, but so stylized, they look like bread, too. Loaves and fishes, feeding the thousands, a story told six times in the Gospels. So, maybe kind of a big deal.

I don’t know if Cuba changed Jon, but he kept drinking. Meanwhile, I took the paintings to a frame shop and chose a frame that reminded me firewood. I had the art dry mounted, to accent the rough edges of the thick paper the artist used. I liked the rough edges and firewood and bread and fish. I liked thinking about how Jesus can make much out of the tiniest bits. I hung the paintings in a place in our home where I could see them every time I walked in the door.

Jon died.

I sold our house and gave away nearly all of its contents, including the two paintings. I moved, I re-married, I moved again many times, became a Gramma, survived cancer, decorated a new home with new paintings (and old photographs).

I like to think I’ve entered a kingdom of aliveness, of service, and of profound health.

Some days, yes. Some days, no.

I texted my step-daughter from the consignment shop. “Robyn! Look at these!” She was shocked, too, and had many questions. I didn’t have any answers—but a question of my own. “Do you want me to buy these for you? Do you want them? I will get them for you …” No, no, she said.

No.

“But while you’re there, will you keep an eye out for an entertainment center? LOL.”

Ah, healing. There you are.

---

In three months, Matt and I will board a plane for New York City and then another plane for Johannesburg and then another plane for Lillongwe, Malawi. We will stagger off the plane and onto a bus and into the arms of people whose names I am trying to memorize—Gibson, Thocco, Kiddie, Harold, et al. They will teach us about Africa, about AIDS, about serving the sick and the poor.

I am bringing a few meager skills, my loaf or two of bread. Perhaps my man will fall head over heals in love with Africa and her warm hearts. Perhaps something in him will feel extra alive and particularly moved, the way I do when those toothy faces beam at me. Perhaps he will want to go time and time again.

We will buy mementos while we are there, maybe even a painting. If we do, it will hang on a wall in our home for a year. Or a decade.

Maybe even a lifetime.

And then?

It will not. And I’m cool with that.

In one of the Gospel stories that describes Jesus feeding thousands, He asks his disciples, “Whatcha got?” They talk about money and existing supplies, evidently taking stock of assets before stating the obvious: not enough. Then Jesus works his miracles and everyone eats to a Thanksgiving-like stupor with Thanksgiving-like quantities of leftovers.

Yes, the story is about Jesus doing much with little and perhaps also how sharing what we’ve got—even the smidgiest smidgen—is radically more than enough in the right hands.

But also? Compassion. Jesus fed the crowds of people because he had compassion for them, for their travel weariness, for their hungry bellies, for their physical well-being. They were hungry. He fed them. He call us to do the same.

I was tempted to buy (or I should say “re-buy”) the loaves and fishes paintings. I didn’t. I stood and admired them for a bit, congratulating myself on well-chosen mats and frames.

In the end, I walked away. And later, when I rummaged around in my heart and asked her how she was feeling, she said:

"A little unsettled. A lot reminiscent."

"And, perhaps, maybe even a little bit compassionate."

Oh, healing. There you are.