Vaishnavi’s drawing continued as the months passed. We’d arrive at Holy Trinity, dash into the pew, and before our coats were off Vaishnavi would be bent over her papers. I had never really paid attention to what she might be drawing. Then at one Mass, for whatever reason, I decided to watch.
Starting at the top center of the page, she meticulously drew a series of straight lines. If a line wavered, she would erase it. Faint, hardly discernible pencil tracings were followed by a darker outline. Rubber shavings fell near my feet as she drew, erased, re-drew, and erased again. As she connected two of the lines into a ninety degree angle, the image struck me for the first time.
It was the cross. A three-dimensional, shaded, twelve-inch long rendering of the cross that hung behind the altar. “INRI” scratched darkly into the page.
She saw me looking at the drawing, smiled, handed it to me, and started the same drawing on a new sheet of paper. Six years later, at thirteen years old, Vaishnavi still draws and redraws the cross. I’m not sure where all these sketches end up. She gives some to me; I have them on my bulletin board, in desk drawers, between the pages of books.
I’ve never asked her what brings her back to that same image every week. I know it’s not the textbook theological understanding of the symbol. Our family simply goes to church. My sister and I sit next to each other, and something within the cross keeps speaking to her.
Read Again https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/drawing-lessonBagikan Berita Ini
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