A beautiful evening in the Chapel! Father has brought a small cabinet on castors up to the space and I’m sort of ‘moving in’ my stuff…the drop cloth, paint buckets, paints and such. I will no longer pack my drop cloth each night because there is no need to be shaking it out anymore. Paint from this point on. I climbed up the tall ladder and scrubbed down the walls so that all residual paint dust would be gone and I would have a nice surface. I taped around the woodwork and baseboards and as I did, I felt such excitement about the painting.
I was pretty happy this morning when one of my dear students came and asked what time I had done my sanding last evening. I told her that I worked from 4:30 until the church bells rang at 6:00 p.m. She told me that she had come over to join me at 6:30….found me gone and so stayed for Mass. I told her that the fact that she had made that effort would spill blessings out over the wall…and I told her that next time she is interested I would be happy to pick her up to join me. There will be lots of accomodations made for little apprentice sorts.
I also received a visit this evening from two highschool students while I applied a coat of gesso to the bottom half of the wall. They chatted away with me about the painting process…what I had done to prepare the wall and one of them recalled some things I had taught him in highschool art…techniques I was using on this project. Very nice…Over these few days I have thought about the people Jesus met along the way….the way of the cross. It has been a great comfort when people have stopped by and spoken to me as I’ve worked. Yesterday I met a parishoner who waters the plants in the evenings. I like the concept of ‘companionship’…I’ve been thinking about that every evening.
I stuck four names on the wall of the Chapel…names of people I am praying for each night when I’m alone there. Someone unstuck them last night and I found them at the front of the church, back in a basket where I had initially found them. I took them out of the basket and returned them to the Chapel (placed them in my new cabinet)…where each night I can focus again on the spiritual journeys of Sarah, Sydney, Robert and Joshua. We move through Lent with hope…faith…trust.
My studio at home has not been so full of energy lately, given my time at school with assessment and mark input of this past week. I’m looking forward to getting back at the glacier painting I had started just a week ago. This coming Saturday I will make time to deliver the work that I hoped to move last week. I have an appointment to have my tire repaired on Friday, so I will be more confident about the drive anyway.
It has been a good week…productive…peaceful. My son has just arrived home from his band practice and my daughter is out for the first night to a new work location. I hope that it is going well for her.