Art for my birthday! Art and love #Grateful

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” – Pablo Picasso

So yesterday, March 26, was my birthday; I am now 69. That is amazing to me! The end of another decade, just barely still in my sixties! I received cards and greetings and messages and well-wishes from a little more than two hundred people, so thanks for that.

It was probably one of the busiest birthday days I have ever experienced. I had two long but productive phone interviews for a big article I am writing for the Florida Methodists; Rebekah and I took more stuff over to the Saint Patrick Street house – packing and unpacking; and I spent a lot of time doing prep work for the third in my Wednesday evening Lenten Lecture series over at Howard Memorial.

More on the lecture once the less glitchy video becomes available. But for today I want to focus on art. Both of us have a weakness for great art, and Rebekah’s birthday gift – one which took a lot of planning and forethought to pull off – absolutely hit a home run.

The Story:

Here’s the story. Back in December we received one of those artsy 2025 Calendars, featuring a different painting for each month. This calendar – pictured at the top of this post – was the best we have seen in a long time, and we fell in love with many of the scenes.

So Rebekah, paying attention to the months I liked the most, got in touch with the artist (in Florida) and she made arrangements to purchase three of the original works! I kid you not, she actually got a hold of the artist and presented the paintings to me as my 69th birthday gift!

How cool is that?!

It helps, of course, that the artist is our niece, Jordan Alexander Bennett, the one who was married this past November (“Good News Just When we Need it“). We are blessed with a lot of talent in this family – music and theater and art and more – and I am just so grateful.

May your day be full with the kind of beauty you want to remember and the kind of love that sustains you.