I used to help Johnny identify with Jesus by finding him black Jesuses and explaining how what he suffered, Jesus also suffered with him. Sometimes I would paint them too:
I found this Jesus recently and it is one of my favorites because it actually looks like Jesus with dark skin.
I was raised Polish-American, but my heart is divided among all of the people I have met and helped and been helped by throughout the world. I remember after a couple of years in Siberia Bobby wrote to me that I was starting to look Russian. Its normal for a person to pick up the spirit of those they serve, so that didn't surprise me. But there is also something African about my heart... something about every group of people who have become my family over the years as I lived, prayed and served among them. For this reason, I identify with black Jesus pictures (especially when they look like Jesus.) Johnny always wanted to work with me in my crazy vocation. When I was in Russia he wrote to me that if I came back to the US to serve, he promised to be a priest to work along side of me. When we were in Poland and Spain, he said that the places I was showing him where I had lived were so cool that when I died he wanted to take people on a tour to see what he had seen.
Well, Johnny must take his part in my life and his protection of me seriously, because of this: I made a Hispanic-looking retablo (shadow box) for my garden by the hermitage and put Johnny's old black Jesus carrying the Cross inside of it. It matched the bright, Hispanic-looking bird-feeder. It is hanging in front of my hermitage and facing the door so I can smile and say a prayer every time I go by. Since my Mom fell the other night and cracked her vertebrae I've needed to be inside the house with her instead of up on the hill in the hermitage. Yesterday I ran out to close the windows before the storm hit, and I laughed because my African Jesus carrying the Cross was turned around facing the house. The way this is hanging and set up, one would have to literally unhook the whole thing and flip it around or put a hand inside the box and physically flip the statue around -it is not knockable by animals. I laughed because it was just another sign that Johnny was keeping Jesus watching over me (he was with me in the hermitage, but now Jesus facing the house where I am.) I also had my lavender roses bloom (purple was his favorite color) and bright pink Gerber daisies that had died came back to life and bloomed -and Lisa brought Mom some more of them... (bright pink Gerber daisies were Johnny's favorite flower). Just funny how this kid who knew so well how to get into trouble has been working his tail off trying to stay present in my life and to help me in my vocation.
Ironically, David and Mikey Thomas (who are now grown men) stopped by here to see my Mom yesterday -May Johnny keep helping us all.
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