Sunday, July 19, 2020
Sunday Reflection: The Portrait
I got up yesterday early, and sat in a little grove of trees by a stream in northern Michigan with my parents. It has been great to see them again in person.
We talked about John Lewis, who had died the day before. Congressman Lewis was a remarkable man, and probably a lot of other families had conversations about him yesterday, of one kind or another.
Ours had a special element, though. My dad had painted John Lewis's portrait.
Often, my dad works from photos. For this, he took a series of pictures of Mr. Lewis in Ann Arbor. My dad said that he was struck by how John Lewis seemed not to crave attention the way other politicians tend to, but was gracious about the whole thing.
After that, my dad started thinking about the background. He had read somewhere that Lewis grew up in a wood house in Alabama, and thought that might be the backdrop-- the boards of that house. So, he got in his car and drove from Detroit to Alabama. Because, I suppose, that is how you get things right. That's how you tell the truth.
He knew that Lewis was from near Troy, Alabama, so he started there. The first people he asked didn't know who John Lewis was, but then he found some professors having lunch (from Troy University, I guess), and they knew that Lewis was from a nearby town. So he drove that way.
When he got close, he stopped for gas. He struck up a conversation with another man there, and asked him if he knew where the wooden house was, the one where John Lewis had grown up. The other man said "That house wasn't wood! It's brick!" My dad asked the guy how he knew, and he said he knew because he was John Lewis's brother.
And that settled that.
So, instead, my dad did an American flag as a background, but not a waving clean one. It looks as if it is painted on broken concrete. There might be a bullet hole. Because, we can love something imperfect, like this country, and true patriots strive to make it better.
Here is the portrait:
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