One

Catechesis starts back up this Sunday. If you live in Binghamton you’ve been hearing me whine about it for a couple of months now without me actually making any progress. I’ve had a big gorgeous room to work in all summer and so I spread everything out, so I could see it better, don’t you know, and there it has largely remained, week after week. I have fourteen lessons still to write, boxes and tiny figures to mend, oh, and little cork trees, and the rooms themselves to put together, but the main thing that I’ve been fretting about, not able to face at all, was the painting of the twelve apostles and Jesus for the Last Supper.

Two

Thirteen little naked dowels, staring at me day after day, and big vats of red, green, blue, black, white and yellow paint. I finally perched on a little child’s chair yesterday and started trying to mix colors. Elphine came in and with true wonder and surprise asked what I was doing.

“I’m trying to make a flesh color,” I said petulantly.

“Flesh?” she raised her incredulous valley girl voice that she’s been so irritatingly trying out, “that doesn’t look like the color of flesh.”

“Go away,” I said, “if you’re going to be a discouragement to me.”

She came back several more times to see my brew go from pink to orange to purple and back to orange and finally, finally, finally to a tannish brown.

“That’s more like it,” she said, as if I were waiting around for her approval.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I asked, “than hang around here judging me?”

“I really want to paint now” she said.

“No!” I cried, “no no no! Leave me alone to think!”

Three

Of course, everyone else had their turns coming in to offer advice and shouting as well. And the cooking of Shepherd’s Bowl, which was going on at the same time, turned out to be more than usually loud and fraught. And then Crazy Trumpet Guy made one of his appearances (you know who I’m talking about Binghamton) and feelings were being mashed into the ground all over the place. Matt kept texting me with instructions about how to subdue the mayhem. “I just need to sit here and paint!” I shouted in all caps.

Four

Don’t know why I couldn’t face the little guys till now. Maybe it’s that they are a favorite in the atrium. They get used every single Sunday, arranged lovingly around the little table with the beautiful little lace cloth and the cup and plate and the super tiny crucifix. Being high use, I don’t want them to look stupid and ugly. Furthermore, the bar has recently been set really high with real artists painting the Magi and Anna and Simeon, and Mary and Joseph. They’re so beautiful. Their flesh is all a nice color. They have faces and hands.

Five

Also, and this is one of those things I worry about that I know really doesn’t matter for the three to five room, I’m pretty sure that Judas wasn’t there for the words of institution. So in some ways I always feel like he should be left out entirely. But that’s too much to get into with little people. But I also want to be faithful to the scriptures. So I’m always having a stupid internal argument, every time I do this lesson. And I had it all afternoon as I was painting the wretched little guys.

Six

How does this ridiculous painting of the disciples and Jesus merit seven whole takes? It doesn’t. But what else am I going to do? Blog for seven paragraphs about how I haven’t gardened in a month, and how the big yellow flowering bushes is eating up my roses, or how I haven’t been bringing in the insane bumper crop of kale which I still don’t like, or how I’ve neglected to give the dog and the children hair cuts and so they look unkept and unloved, or how I’m going to have to extend my library book because I didn’t read it, or how I wanted to drop everything and read Stillwater but I didn’t, so it’s still sitting there, calling to me, or how the whole weekend is going to be so busy and I don’t know how to fit it all in…..see, painting some little pieces of wood was infinitely preferable to blather on about.

Seven

Go read Jen!