4-4-19 WINGS II

For the second half of my Lent Writing this year I am revisiting the trigger words I have used already, but writing from a different perspective. On 3-13-19  the word was WINGS. 

Today I'll use the same word in a different light.

Angel Unaware

Our ten-year-old grand-daughter Ruby slept over last night. It's Spring Break and she is free from school for the week. So, tonight she and Sophie came over with their dad and helped me bake cookies with Beth and Tess while our son John (their dad) and Dave (their grandpa) installed a trailer hitch with electric wiring on John's new car.

I changed baby Tess' diaper, and when I took it out to the outside garbage my heart kind of melted seeing two sets of legs poking out from underneath the car. There is something eternal about the image of a father and son  planted in a bed of tools, their eyes focused on the same thing, their hands working in harmony with each other. 

I guess a similar scene of divinity was taking place a few feet away, through the kitchen door, where eight hands measured and stirred and scooped and baked in unison. The girls and I decided to make chocolate drop cookies. We are blessed to have children and grandchildren close enough to hammer and turn and bake and nibble together with on a regular basis. I know this is a rare and particular gift and I acknowledge it before God.

Anyway, Ruby asked if she could sleep over, and of course we obliged. I had cancelled my Thursday morning guitar classes because of Spring Break, so we could have a free portion of time to do something totally spontaneous together. How I would have loved to spend even one morning of my life with my grandmother. 

After everyone else had gone home and we had finished cleaning up the dinner and cookie mess, we sat in the family room with Gumpa and watched three baking shows on BYU TV. Finally, when I came to my senses and noticed the clock chiming eleven times, I told Ruby it was way past bedtime. So she snuggled in my lap while Gumpa offered a benediction on the day. Ruby felt the need to explain that her arms were folded around my back, and mine were folded around hers as Gumpa prayed. As Dave spoke the name of each of our children and grandchildren in his prayer, I softly passed my hand over Ruby's back, speaking love to her in silence. Because her arms were also wrapped around me, her angel wings poked out, and as the palm of my hand passed over them I was struck by the divinity of this girl snuggled into my lap. You know those little triangular bones in the back, one under each shoulder? We call them the angel wings. It's the spot where I figure our wings would attach. And tucked to the side just under those bones is a place we call the Johnny spot. That's the part on a baked chicken where Johnny claims the tenderest pieces of meat. Johnny usually carves our chickens, and the spots are always empty little cavities by the time anyone else can get to them.

When Dave scratches my back I direct him with the markers of my angel wings and the Johnny spot. 

"Upper left, outer side of the angel wing, and be sure to get the Johnny spot," I tell him. He always obliges, even when I wake him up  to help with a consuming itch I cannot reach. Dave can fall asleep at night faster than any human I have ever seen. I'm pretty much the opposite, flipping between reading various books and magazines at my bedside, reviewing messages on my phone, and praying. If I am lucky enough to fall asleep I generally wake up very shortly thereafter and panic that I will never in my life sleep again. I usually end up out in the family room in the recliner, reading with my legs bent up to my chest, because they are always restless.

My friend James Christensen, who recently joined the ranks of angels, was a master of storytelling with paint. He has a treasure trove of masterpieces wherein angels do angelic things, and sometimes non-angelic things. James was whimsy personified, and you never knew from one day to the next which version you would get. He had a deep and sincere faith in all things divine.

Of Men and Angels

And he also had a mischievous sparkle that always irritated his eye and he could never get it out even when he rubbed hard.

How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin

I loved him. So many people loved him. We still do. Sometimes I imagine James hovering over Carole, and his kids and grandkids. I imagine him lifting his artist hand and passing a luminous palm over the bony nubs of their angel wings while they are sleeping.

The Oldest Angel

James has a sculpture and painting I love that depicts a one-winged angel. Sometimes I feel like a one-winged angel; with one foot in the divine and the other slipped over the edge.

Sleeper, Lost in Dreams

A couple months ago, after our last Mormon Arts Foundation board meeting at Sam and Tammy Cardon's place in Orem, Dave and I stopped at the art gallery in the mall where they had set up an exhibit of James' unfinished works. Carole says she isn't quite sure James would be happy with people seeing his unfinished work. He was always particular about when he would show his pieces, because they evolved under his direction and he didn't like to reveal himself as incomplete.

One particular painting in his unfinished works depicts an angel looking at her wings spread out on the floor, as if she is trying to figure out what to do with them. It is classic Christensen, parable-like in its layers of meaning. 

The Problem with Wings

"Doctrine may state angels have no wings, 

but to an artist with the love of classical art 

such as Christensen, wings on angels were about 

design and symbolism. A good friend of Christensen's

 would often comment on an otherwise extraordinary

painting having a 'problem with wings.'"

I personally like the idea of wings on angels. I know we probably won't need them for transport. It's just that they look and sound so awesome, and they represent the superhuman potential in all of us.

Our kitchen wall always had a Christensen calendar on it

.

I miss that smile.