Columban Fr. Bill Brunner keeps his eyes open for seashells, which are plentiful in the Ocean State, Rhode Island, where he lives. The Columban Fathers have their own community of retired priests in Bristol, on the shores of Narragansett Bay, but Fr. Bill finds shells when walking the beach or visiting the local state park on a Saturday afternoon outing with the other missionary priests he lives with. He also finds them right at the dinner table.
We often have fresh shellfish delivered to St. Columban’s Residence, as well, either from a local seafood delivery company or straight from our cook, who often serves up what he raked out of the mud at low tide earlier in the day. Then Fr. Bill puts six or seven shells into his pockets at the end of a meal, and washes them out, after a feed on the little necks, quahogs and clam chowder for lunch. After they dry, he paints designs and scenes on them.
Fr. Bill has been enthusiastic about the “spirituality of color” from an early age. His older brother Dick, when they were growing up together in Iowa, first alerted him to how faith and art come together in unexpected ways. His brother sometimes pointed out to him that the figure of Christ in Catholic schools was a sad figure, suffering on the cross and close to death.
“Why can’t they make a joyful Christ?,” he wondered to his brother. The question stuck with him, and over Fr. Bill’s years serving abroad in the Philippines, and Alaska, and later on in New Mexico, he looked for and promoted the search for new images of Christ.
While in New Mexico, he met Fr. Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk based in Colorado, who was known for his work in developing and promoting Centering Prayer, a Christian form of meditation, and his exploration of interreligious dialogue and the mystical path, emphasizing interconnectedness and the importance of transcending limitations.
This contact led Fr. Bill to explore whether a new image of Christ could be created that would catch Christ in another mood, apart from the despair of the Cross—after playing with children, for instance, or when enjoying the company of His disciples, or while sharing His teachings on how God reveals to the merest children what highly educated people and revered sages miss out on.