Each winter I prune our backyard grapevine. For the past eight years, I have used the branches to create a stick sculpture. This year’s addition is a Dragon Fly. During the summer months, a dragon fly patrolled the surface of our swimming pool each morning looking for breakfast. The sculpture honors those visits and helps me to remember the joy I felt in his graceful presence.
The dragon fly joins other creatures in the parkway. They include a peacock, apply tree with snake, and a bird.
The story of Jonah has no tidy ending. The prophet sulks under his makeshift shelter while Yahweh’s question echoes across the ages, “Should I not be concerned for people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.” I pray the Lord will help not only his question, but also his compassion echo in my mind as well. May he give me courage to engage with him even when I know my logic and motivations are as misguided as Jonah’s. May he sort out my mind, heart, and will when it all feels like scrambled eggs to me. Amen
We strike a bargain, abet an unconscious one. “You are our
God and we are your people; therefore, bad things should not happen to us. Bad
things should happen to bad people.”
If there was an empire that deserved the label “bad” (and there are many), Assyria was at the top of Jonah’s list. During the seventh and eighth centuries BC, they gobbled up territory, exacted tribute, and enslaved conquered peoples. Little Israel was no match for big, bad Assyria. Unfortunately for Jonah, Israel’s god, Yahweh, had other plans. Yahweh sent his reluctant prophet to preach judgement. Jonah not only preached judgement, he expected it because ruthless Nineveh deserved it. But then the unexpected happened; the people of Nineveh, from the king down to the street beggar, repented. They went the whole nine yards with sackcloth, ashes, fasting, praying, and pleading for mercy. What were the odds that “bad people” would respond with such conviction to the preaching of a foul-smelling foreign prophet?
I spent the summer trying to get under the skin of the prophet Jonah. The result of that process was artwork, four retreat guides, and an essay. In the process Jonah got under my skin.
A small flock of peacocks live up the street. About a year ago, I made a peacock sculpture from the branches of my grape vine and placed the artwork in our front yard sculpture garden to honor the birds. This morning while eating my breakfast, I looked out the window to discover the adult male, whom I will call Percy, in the yard, admiring my artwork, or so I thought. I grabbed my camera, some birdseed, and ran outside to snap their photo together.
Percy and the Grape Vine Peacock
When I got closer, however, I observe that Percy was more enamored with his reflection in the shinny blue door of the neighbor’s BMW that was parked in front of our house. He spent fifteen minutes walking around the car and pecking at his blue reflection.
Percy Admiring His Reflection
I’m not sure who was more vain. Percy the Proud Peacock pecking his reflection or me thinking a bird found my stick sculpture attractive.
Sheep and shepherd are master images in Scripture. Sheep appear 400 times in the Bible and shepherd 100 times. As Psalm 23 says, the Lord is our shepherd and we are his sheep wandering, wayward, but greatly loved. But the Lord is also a sheep—“the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” The same double meaning applies to humans also. We are always sheep but some are also invited to be shepherds of God’s flock. The word “pastor” is of course Latin for “shepherd.”
Sheep and shepherd were meaningful themes for the founding members of the Pasadena Covenant Church in 1922. All of them were working class Swedish immigrants who came to the United States seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Of the 26 charter members, 18 were women. The church grew out of a women’s Bible study for Swedish women who worked as domestic servants to the wealthy of Pasadena. Almost all grew up in rural farming country. They had been around livestock. When the second sanctuary was built by the congregation in 1947, it is interesting that the children of the founders chose the image of sheep and shepherd for their stained glass windows as a way to honor their fore bearers.
Names of the original 26 charter membersNames of current members of Pasadena Covenant
In creating Betsy the Sheep, I decided to use a very common, humble
material—cardboard—to represent our past. I wrote the names of the 26 charter
members on the inside frame work on one side of the sheep’s body. On the other
side of the body, I wrote Psalm 23. On the cardboard skin, I then wrote the
names of all the current members of the church community. For the wool coat, I
used pages of a Covenant song book to suggest that the sheep exists to sing the
praises of the Lord. The songbook that I used was edited by our former music
minister Roland Tabell. Music was also important to the early members. In fact
the first sanctuary was paid for in part from the freewill offerings collected
during concerts given throughout the west coast by the founding pastor who was
a singer.
Finally the sculpture is named Betsy the Sheep after Betsy Peterson, charter member number 22. She was born in Dahlsland Sweden is 1867, immigrated to the US in 1888 at age 21. She eventually found her way to Pasadena and the women’s Bible study. At some point, she married Mr. Peterson but there is no record of him. By the time the current sanctuary was built in 1947 she had died, but the congregation thought enough of her to name the east stain glass window in honor of her. Children of the church donated their offerings to help pay for the window. Lastly, in constructing the sculpture, I discovered that I ended up hiding much of what makes the image meaningful to me. I think that is also true in real life. Our history, our relationship with God, and even our relationship with one another are hidden. As shepherds, we are called to care for not only the visible parts of the community but especially the hidden parts.
Additional Cardboard sculptures can be found here
The story of Jonah has no tidy ending. The prophet sulks under his makeshift shelter while Yahweh’s question echoes across the ages, “Should I not be concerned for people who cannot tell their right hand from their left.” I pray the Lord will help not only his question, but also his compassion echo in my mind as well. May he give me courage to engage with him even when I know my logic and motivations are as misguided as Jonah’s. May he sort out my mind, heart, and will when it all feels like scrambled eggs to me. Amen
