On Monday between Christmas and New Year’s last week, our family traveled to Stockbridge, Mass. It is a quintessential New England town captured in “Home for Christmas, a popular painting by Norman Rockwell. Stockbridge was his home for many years. On a grey and cold day, we enjoyed a hearty lunch at the 250 year old Red Lion Inn and a warm welcome to the museum which honors Rockwell.
As we took in some of the more than 900 original works, one of the things that struck me was the way Rockwell relied on friends and neighbors in his paintings. At the beginning of his career he would hire paid models to portray the scene which he would then paint. Eventually he began just using friends and neighbors.
This was even true for one of his most controversial paintings, “The Problem We All Live With.” The piece shows a young Ruby Bridges marching resolutely into an all white school in New Orleans. Lynda and Anita Gunn, two granddaughters of Bill Gunn, a neighbor of Rockwell’s in Stockbridge, modelled for the figure of Ruby Ridges. One of the US Marshals escorting the figure of Ruby was modeled by Stockbridge Police Chief William J. Obanhein. The piece
The presence of these “everyday” people in this iconic work of art, and their presence in Rockwell’s other art, tells us that the stories represented by the paintings are our stories. We can’t just look at the pieces and say, “Look at them!” We have to gaze at the art and say, “Look at us!” Literally, and symbolically, we are in these paintings and their stories. The canvas is intended to be a mirror, giving us a clearer picture of ourselves.
And this is what the Gospel does. We’re in that story. We’re the shepherds rushing with haste to see the newborn Christ. We’re those first disciples hearing Jesus’ “Come, follow me.” We’re Judas in the Garden betraying Jesus with a kiss. We can’t read this story and think, “Look at them!” We read this story and think, “Look at us!” It is the Gospel story, above all stories, in which we truly find ourselves.
