We have known Leticia since she was a little girl. Her family and our family went to Finland Mennonite Church when our girls were little, too, in the 1980s. Her parents, Jim & Judy, had two sons by birth, then took in numerous foster children, several of which they adopted. Some of them were born addicted. Others had mental or physical disabilities. Judy struggled with bipolar disorder. I am sure it was not an easy household to grow up in.
Leticia is married and they have fully grown children of their own. She has asked me on two occasions if I would paint her portrait. She is so pleased with it that it will be joining her personal collection this week.
This painting is acrylic on 14″ x 14″ stretched canvas. The edges are painted blue, so framing is optional.
Price: $100 plus postage. Proceeds will service our sewing machines which need it after making thousands of face masks to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The US spends a huge portion of its gross domestic product on its military. Its #1 export is arms. We are the number one arms dealer in the world, including the prime seller to terrorists like Yemen, ISIS, Al Qaeda and Saudi. Of course, the US is the largest terrorist nation in the world with a military budget larger than the next ten nations combined, routine torture, preëmptive war, a congress which openly discusses terrorist tactics such as mining a civilian harbor resulting in the sinking of an ally’s ship.
We hope in guns to the point that it is impoverishing us. We say we cannot afford universal healthcare, yet we spend more than what that would cost, every year, on weapons systems that the Pentagon doesn’t even want. Three of them don’t even work! Al Qaeda was created by the CIA. ISIS was created by Congress. Sen. John McCain helped promote it! There are photos of him with the founders, and he is giving his support. It is all about selling our weapons, to keep the rich arms dealers wealthy. It has nothing to do with peace or security. So if you put your hope in guns, you will be put to shame. There are revolutionists who admire these weapons and find them attractive, because electoral politics have proven to be hopeless. Both, so-called major parties are in bed with Wall St., Big Pharma, and the military industrial complex.
So this image is a hope against hope; that we would learn to disarm, demilitarize, re-prioritize, and spend our resources to support life, instead of spending our lives supporting arms.
I positioned the AK47 and AR15 in the form of a Cross and painted them red, white and blue. Most Americans are deluded, thinking that the US was founded as a Christian country and fights for democracy and human rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. The country was founded on religious bigotry, opportunism and genocide. It has been at war continually since its founding; many times with multiple countries.
Painting is acrylic on 10″ x 10″ stretched canvas.
Price: $30reduced to $10 plus postage
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Dorothy Day lived from November 8, 1897 to November 29, 1980. She lived with Lionel Moise, by whom she became pregnant. He persuaded her to get an abortion. She married Berkeley Tobey and was divorced a year later. She did give birth to a daughter, Tamar Teresa, by her common law husband, Forster Batterham, a biologist and anarchist, in 1926. They parted ways in 1929, after her conversion to Catholicism. She was a journalist and an activist for socialist causes and women’s suffrage. She was jailed on several occasions and engaged in a hunger strike after being arrested for demonstrating in front of the White House in 1917. She converted to Catholicism in 1927. This did not put a damper on her zeal to help the poor or to secure rights for the disenfranchised.
Dorothy established a Christian hospitality commune and started publishing the Catholic Worker in New York City. This started the Catholic Worker movement, which now has over 125 hospitality houses for the homeless and poor in the US and overseas. She advocated that every Christian household should maintain an extra room to provide hospitality to the poor. She is famous for saying: “When I feed the poor they call me a saint. when I ask why they are poor they call me a communist!” She also told people to not call her a saint. She understood, as I learned early on, that when people call you a ‘saint’ or ‘radical’, it is just a way of excusing themselves from taking similar actions to serve the poor.
Pope Francis included her in a short list of exemplary Americans, together with Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thomas Merton, in his address before the United States Congress.
“Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.”
“Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.”
“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”
Painting is acrylic on 20″ x 16″ stretched canvas.
Price: $200 plus postage
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Dimitri Papagiani was born with a mysterious, incurable birth defect; more like, multiple birth defects. He is crippled. He cannot speak, except in unintelligible grunts. His body and limbs are twisted and he is confined to a horizontal wheelchair. His mother has cared for him for all of his 54 years, with help from his sister.
If you have followed my work on this website, you know that I have had 43 acquaintances who have committed suicide including 19 people close to me, who include my sister and my baptismal godfather. I also know many others who have attempted suicide, but failed. When I saw Dimitri at St. Andrew Orthodox Church, Lewes, Delaware, last Sunday, I was so moved. With so much stacked against him, he still decides to wake up every morning and face the day.
Painting is acrylic on 20″ x 16″ on stretched canvas
Price: $195 plus postage
To say that Angie was not a pleasant person, is the kindest euphemism I can muster. Let me just say, when her body was found dead of murder, no one was surprised, and there was a long list of people with possible motive. Yet we considered it a joy to serve her a hot nutritious meal in the park, rain or shine, once a week for about fifteen years. I think she died around 2007.
Angie loved to tease people. That is an understatement; it was more that she liked to torment people. She wanted to tease and provoke until blood was boiling. She positively delighted in making other people angry. She was proud of being a Native American “squaw”. She was always bundled up and totally covered, even when the weather didn’t call for it. She always had some scam going. She would give one of the volunteers some tea or some special lip balm. The next week they were informed they owed her $10 or more; and, by the way, she had the rest of their order now. She didn’t care whether she was picking on children or adults. She could be relentless.
Once I brought venison stew down to the Love Park from a roadkill deer that Alex Smerkanich had picked up while it was still twitching alongside of the 309. A coworker and I butchered it after work. I just left the ribs long. I roasted them and served them as an added bonus to those who wanted them. Many of the people were puzzled as to what kind of animal these bones came from. I let them know it was deer. They asked where it came from. I told them. Angie was off to the races! And she didn’t stop until she died. She was constantly after me about sweeping pigeons off the pavement, running down squirrels, etc., to put roadkill in the soup. It frustrated her that I never got angry with her over this.
One night, the entire McGraw family, all eleven of them, came down in their short bus to help serve. They even brought along their three-legged Great Dane. After we were done serving, they got the dog out for a little social time and walk in the park. Angie saw this dog and exclaimed, “What happened to that poor dog’s leg?!” Sweet little Elisa McGraw, who had never uttered a word down there before, immediately replied, “We put it in the soup!” We were all surprised. It sure shut up Angie.
I have painted a terrible picture of Angie, but I recall tender moments, as well, and times when she apologized with tears and said thank you. It is hard to imagine what torments she must have suffered to have built such terrible defenses for her psyche. We all start life with great potential and aspiration. No one looks at a little baby and envisions a bitter, contentious, homeless lady leaving conflict in her wake. Who and what did this to her? Why did it happen to her and not to me? When we start to ask these questions, we are starting down the path of understanding what Paul of Tarsus was saying when he said we should each look at ourselves as the worst sinner ever. (1 Tim. 15) This puts Jesus words, “Judge not”, to the test. People do what they feel they need to do to cope. We rationalize our own behavior. At the time, in the moment, our behavior, no matter how bizarre or hurtful, always seems rational. And we’ve done some pretty stupid, bizarre and hurtful stuff in our lives, no? Everyone you see is fighting a great battle. They haven’t had the same advantages, perspectives and privileges as we have.
As ornery as Angie was, we still looked forward to seeing her as part of the mix on the nights we would serve. I still remember her gruff laugh. I didn’t mind being the butt of her jokes. I could play along, if it kept her from picking on someone else. I just wasn’t raised to throw people away. And people she was!
Let us be kind.
The painting is acrylic on 11″x14″ canvas with painted sides.
Price: $80 plus Postage.
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St. Marie of Paris said, “Each person is the very icon of God incarnate in the world. The way to God lies through the love of people.” So Gary Heidnik was an “icon of God”. Hmmm? Most religious people like to sort their saints and sinners much more discreetly than that. I guess that’s why almost all the religious people hated Jesus. He accepted everyone, no exceptions.
I had an encounter with Gary Heidnik. It must have been in 1988. I was Mennonite Chaplain for Philadelphia Prisons. I was waiting for an inmate to be released from the City Hall Court, so I could take him to visit his mom, then up to the aftercare program that I oversaw in the suburbs. My back was turned, but I felt a darkness of evil. I turned around to see Gary Heidnik, the serial killer, shuffling in shackles, being escorted by two guards from the courtroom into the caged holding area. The hair on my neck stood on end. And all I thought was, “God is gracious. He is still giving him breath. What is there possibly left that God loves and hopes to redeem? Yet here he was, the living, breathing evidence that God ‘is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’” I learned then, that even Gary Heidnik ‘was the very icon of God in the world.’
Now, I am no longer a believer in God per se, because I have seen and experienced too much evil done by people claiming to act in his name. I do, however, believe in the sanctity and dignity of life. People are not inherently evil. Every one of us was conceived and born with hope and potential to somehow add something wonderful, beautiful and unique to the human experience! So many of us get beat down by poverty, malnutrition, war, prejudice, or, in Gary’s case, severely mentally ill parents. We get broken.
Gary’s dad was a cruel man and Gary was a bed wetter. (chicken and egg?) Gary’s dad would force him to hang his wet sheets out the window for all in the neighborhood to see. He was good at academics. He was quiet and never made eye contact with fellow students; always looking down. He tested near genius on his IQ. He dropped out of the military academy he went to for high school and joined the Army at age 17. In the Army, he trained as a medic and earned his GED. He was stationed at 46th Army Surgical Hospital in Landstuhl, West Germany. In August 1962, Heidnik reported in sick, complaining of severe headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and nausea. He was diagnosed with gastroenteritis, and it was noted that he also displayed symptoms of mental illness, for which he was prescribed trifluoperazine. In October 1962, he was transferred to a military hospital in Philadelphia, where he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder and honorably discharged.
He enrolled in a nursing program at U. Penn., only to drop out after one semester. He worked as a psychiatric nurse at a VA hospital, but was fired for poor attendance and rude behavior. From August 1962 until his arrest in March 1987, Heidnik spent time in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and attempted suicide at least 13 times. In 1970, his alcoholic mother Ellen, committed suicide. His brother Terry also spent time in psychiatric institutions and attempted suicide multiple times. Gary was a brilliant investor. He started with $1500 and turned it into over $1million. When he was arrested, they found his dilapidated rowhouse wallpapered with bearer-bonds. While in state prison, he helped turn several correctional officers into millionaires with the advice he gave them, as well.
Gary’s criminal record is well-known. He murdered two women and raped six. He dismembered and froze a couple of their bodies in order to hide them. While on death row, he attempted suicide again by saving up his Thorazine and taking an overdose. The State of Pennsylvania spent multiple tens of thousands of dollars to nurse him back to health, then tested him to make sure he was competent enough to be executed, then murdered him by lethal injection on July 6, 1999. As of this writing in 2016, he is the last person to be officially executed by the state in PA.
When it came time for his execution, two of his victims, including his former wife, filed for a stay. The state ruled that they had no standing. I find it telling, that they still could see something in Gary that was worthy of their love, “an icon of God incarnate in the world.” After all: God love is.
Painting is 11″x14″ acrylic on canvas. Price: $100 plus postage
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