This is just one of those funny things that happen in life - a story you tell when someone is willing to listen.
Many months ago at Sunday School, someone opened the door to the room quickly and the doorknob hit a framed piece of artwork, breaking the glass. Although neither Ryan nor I had anything to do with it breaking, Ryan decided to take the artwork home to get the glass fixed.
Ryan took the artwork to his office where they can get glass relatively cheap. He leaned the print against the desk, and for the first time, had a good look at it. So did everyone else who came into the office.
Everyone’s reaction was the same, “How Awful!”
Mine was, “What’s with all the nipples?”
At the same time, Ryan realized the frame itself would have to be dismantled for the glass to be replaced. This was turning into an expensive project. Ryan and I decided that perhaps the piece was stuck behind the door for a reason. After all, the church was redecorating.
I called the church to find out what to do. I was told to go to the person responsible for decorating, but after several attempts, I never heard back from him. The artwork sat on our back porch for a while. I came close to throwing it out, but something told me that I should wait.
Then, several months later, while in line at church to say hello to the pastor, I started up a conversation with the woman behind me. We discussed the person playing the piano, and I quickly realized that he was the decorator person I had been looking for. I was overjoyed and began telling her about this strange piece of artwork. She quickly asked if it was a picture of the Last Supper. I said that I supposed it was. She then asked if it was a Salvador Dali. I said I did not know, but slowly, a dim light went off in my head, the nipples and weirdness of the piece were making sense.
In the back recesses of my brain, another story popped into my head. The time when I ordered orange juice at a fancy restaurant, and it tasted terrible, not like the Tropicana from concentrate I was used to. I called the waiter over and complained about the taste, only to be told that it was freshly squeezed.
With fresh squeezed orange juice and Salvador Dali swimming around in my brain, this woman calmly said, “I am the one who donated that artwork to the church and I have been wondering where it was.”
Okay, there are over 150 members at church. I had to stand next to this woman and have a conversation about this picture? What are the chances?
As I backtracked and apologized profusely, she put me at ease and said simply, "God meant for us to have this conversation so I could get the picture back." Thank goodness someone in that conversation had grace and tact. Whew!
Surely it was not the original of this artwork, was it? What would something like that be worth?!
ReplyDeleteNo - oh my! This was just a poster.
ReplyDelete