the last supper

This afternoon I went with my Dad to the nursing home in Rheems to sing with him. He goes every two weeks, and he and one of the pastors of his church have a low-key sort of service for the residents there. I have gone with him in the past, but it has been many months now and there are many new faces, and a conspicuous lack of old ones. My Dad has been studying and compiling old american hymns, and created a songbook for the people there with the music in the first half, and large bold print words in the second half. The songbook contains hymns like Shall We Gather at the River, His Eye is on the Sparrow, When the Roll is Called up Yonder, and many other more obscure tunes that Dad finds and teaches us. The residents know them all. My Dad loves this music, and I think we sang eight songs in a row, all the verses. I try to look at the white and gray haired crowd in front of us between following the words and the alto line. They span the range of being spunky and vocal to quiet with heads tilted to the side and oxygen tubes feeding into their noses. When we finish singing, Are you Washed in the Blood, one man in the front row, Mr. Green, shouts out that the song is terrible, that war is terrible, and his eyes tear up. Dad acknowledges, that, yeah, some people don't like that song, and moves on to a new one.

When pastor Jerry stands up for his sermon he asks, as his opening question, what holiday is coming up this week? There is some mumbling of the correct thanksgiving answer, but Mr. Green again jumps in with,

"Billie Holiday! I knew her, she was gorgeous." I decide I like him best.
"She was a great jazz artist."

Jerry pulls everyone back to thanksgiving, but I am afraid I didn't pay very much attention as I looked around the room, and wondered how I would feel being told to celebrate and be thankful in their situation. Many of the songs that Dad chooses to sing are about suffering, about waiting for heaven, about death really, and I feel uncomfortable singing it with them, to them, being young and healthy and able to drive my car anywhere I want to go. I wonder if that is comforting, singing about "loved ones in the glory" and "understanding better by and by", or if they would rather just forget for a while. I guess I won't know until I am with them someday.

"There is a beautiful painting here. The Last Supper." Mr. Green interupts the sermon. "It is beautiful. Right in this building." And again his face scrunches up with tears again, for just a moment and then it is gone. I like him better and better. At the end of the little service, after finishing with "Brighten the Corner Where you Are", another one that might make me furious if I were them, though they appear to be fine, Mr. Green tells Dad and I that we should make a recording. I ask him about The Last Supper. "It is right in this building! Do you want to go and see it?"
"Sure" I say.
"A lady, a resident here made it and gave it to us."
"Really?" Now I have no idea what to expect. I had planned on a print of the Leonardo, neatly matted under glass. I follow him through the corridors. We set off the alarm, since he holds the door open for a small lady pushing a walker. He leads me to their dining room, with bright colored table cloths and sunflowers in little vases. And he leads me to The Last Supper. It is printed on fabric. Sewn together around the edges, like a little quilt. The image is certainly based on the Leonardo Da Vinci, but redrawn, with much less grace.
"Look at their faces, their expressions" he says. "Look at the bread and the wine in the cups. Look at their hands and look at our Lord in the middle. Isn't it beautiful. What do you think?" His eyes begin to tear and there is a shiny splotch under his nose.
"It is lovely. It is very beautiful. Thank you for showing me."
"I was a colonel in the army for 44 years and then had a stroke. War is a terrible thing. My wife was an artist, and loved to paint. We traveled all over the world But she doesn't see now. A disease in her eyes."
"Oh." I nod.
"Sometimes that's just the way life is".
We walk back to through the hallways, I try not to look into the rooms too much. We set off the alarm again, he doesn't seem to mind. I find my Dad and he finds his wife.
"She is 101 years old", another lady tells me as they leave the room together.
I pick up the music stand and walk out with Dad and pastor Jerry. We push the button codes to go out the door and step out into the cold air.

I have noticed the tension of choice a lot lately. I hadn't wanted to come this afternoon. I had wanted to go home and nap. But as I always find, when I attempt to do somthing a little bit better than what I want, that I am glad I did. There are so many choices, day after day, between doing something for myself and doing something, that I somehow know in my gut, is what Jesus wants. And he probably wants it to teach me something really important, and maybe I will learn to love others a little bit along the way.