Talking to Statues

I was in Clarkson Hospital in Omaha yesterday when I noticed a man apparently having a very animated conversation with a bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson. The man was sitting across from Jefferson, talking clearly and gesturing freely. Jefferson, as is his wont, was listening intently, even though he was in the act of writing the Declaration of Independence. As I got closer, I realized that of course the man was talking on his cell phone, using his head set, and, like many of us, gesturing even though his conversation partner couldn’t see his gestures.

I guess I wouldn’t have blamed the man if he had been talking to Jefferson; the statue (in bronze) is very lifelike. Jefferson is seated, in his shirtsleeves, a large writing board propped on his lap, with a quill pen in his hand. On the board is a piece of parchment with the opening words of the Declaration of Independence already written. But Jefferson isn’t looking at his paper. He’s looking straight ahead, as though pondering what the next words will be in this seminal document of American history, indeed, of world history. It will be important to get it right.

The statue has the effect of humanizing this larger-than-life figure, of making me feel a certain kinship to him. How many times have I turned away from my manuscript or my keyboard and looked at nothing in particular, trying to decide where to go next in what I was writing. The late Charles Schultz of “Peanuts” fame once said that getting the idea for a comic strip was much more difficult than the actual drawing and lettering of the strip. He added, “It’s hard to convince people that when you’re sitting and staring out of the window you’re doing the hardest work of the day.”

But as I thought about the humanized Jefferson I was looking at my thoughts went back to the man who seemed to have been having a conversation with him. Aren’t we all having a conversation with the people who have gone before us? As Americans, we converse with Thomas Jefferson, John and Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth; as Christians we are in dialogue with Augustine and Anselm, Knox and Calvin, Theresa of Avila and Mother Theresa. We listen to what they have to say, and we respond, sometimes in agreement, sometimes in challenge. G.K. Chesteron, one of my conversation partners, once wrote that tradition is simply a way of giving dead people a vote.

When I was in the Reformation Museum in Geneva a few years ago, I saw a life-sized statue of the reformer John Calvin. Calvin, too, is seated, but instead of pondering his next words, he is caught in the act of expounding Scripture. The Bible is open on his lap; with his right hand he is marking the passage he is talking about; his left hand is raised, thrust forward, the index finger up to make a point. The statue, it seems to me, captures one aspect of Calvin, but not everything, any more than the statue of Thomas Jeffereson captured everything about Jefferson. What this statue captures is Calvin’s energy, his commitment, his total captivation by the Word. We may not want to follow Calvin in everything, but here’s one place where he becomes a first-class conversation partner.

If you ever see me talking to a statue of Calvin, you’ll know why.