My foster son is sitting at the white table, the little one I bought at Superstore. He’s coloring.
“When I’m old, Jesus is going to make me a Fisher of Man,” says Joey. I listen from my laptop. “Like Opa, or Uncle Phil. Uncle Phil likes fishing.”
Joey is new to church and Jesus has become one of his favorite superheroes; and when he wears his Spiderman pull-ups at bedtime, he asks Jesus to take care of his mommy.
We’re quiet for a while. Then he asks, “Did Jesus have brown skin like me?”
“Oh, yes, he definitely did,” I say.
Joey smiles. “I love Jesus,” he says. “I am going to go to heaven and die and be with him.”
I don’t know if I’ve ever truly loved Jesus, but I know I want to, and I feel like I love God most when I’m painting or writing. But apparently loving means dying; means carrying a cross and mourning and being crushed but not abandoned. So I think what I’m feeling when I write or when I paint is peace, not love.
(For the rest of this story, won’t you follow me here, friends? And may you know a truly holy Easter… All my love, e.)