RUST COMMENTARY: VATICAN ANGELS COVER 2,500 YEARS

While in St. Louis last weekend, I took the opportunity to treat Wendy (my wife) to a Mother's Day tour of things I felt she would enjoy. It was my early start on RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS WEEK (something Wendy practices all of the time).

We took the opportunity to visit the preview showing and lecture of the once-in-a-lifetime ANGELS FROM THE VATICAN at the St. Louis Art Museum. The exhibit, which features nearly 2,500 years of angels in more than 100 works of art from the Vatican collection in Rome, continues through Aug. 2.

I hadn't realized the role that angels had played in so many historical works of art. And with the TV series "Touched by an Angel," the Frank Perretti books, movies such as "City of Angels," "Ghost" and "Angels in the Outfield" and the many angel books, there is an easily raised fascination about angels.

The exhibit is laid out according to the roles that angels play: Angels as 1. guardians, 2. attending angels, 3. messengers, 4. angels of inspiration, 5. music makers, 6. consoling angels and 7. angels at the altar.

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It had been years, but we visited the SOULARD MARKET Saturday morning. Big crowds were purchasing fresh vegetables, meats, flowers and plants from area farmers and gardeners. Quite a colorful scene which Wendy painted while an art student at Washington University.

After our mandatory stop at a nursery to check out the flowers, trees and shrubs, we visited the campus of my alma mater, Washington University, and toured a traveling high-end antique show, one of those annual events which brought in collectors from around the country. There was no timidity on the prices they charged for their authentic rugs, furniture, art works and other valuables.

It was a fund raiser for the St. Louis REPERTORY Theatre ... which provides some of the best theater in the Midwest.

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Since my curiosity had been raised as to the prices and quality of antiques, we visited the SELKIRK AUCTION Galleries (recently acquired by Phillips Galleries) preview show for one of their periodic auctions which ran from Monday through today.

The procedure is to preview the items to be auctioned off and buy a catalogue listing the items estimated values and the order of items to be auctioned.

Then be in attendance (or have a friend) to bid on the items you might desire. These were finer quality antiques, furniture, oriental rugs, silverware and jewelry from estates or homes in the Midwest.

I saw a lot of beautiful items I'd love to own ... but I had no need or place to put them.

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Continuing our full schedule we took in a Sushi bar with jazz music and saw the movie "CHARACTER" which had English subtitles and recently was voted the best foreign film of the year.

I don't think I've ever seen a film from the Netherlands before, and, like most award winning foreign films, it will not be noted for its lightheartedness.

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Wendy and I got up early Sunday morning to drive back to Cape for a heavy philosophic discussion of society, pluralism and evil (Sunday school) and an uplifting Mothers' Day sermon.

A delightful lunch with my mother-in-law ... and a Sunday drive through a number of Cape's new subdivisions. Managed to wear everyone down so I could get back to the office to catch up on the newspapers, read my mail, listen to my voice mail, clear and respond to my e-mail messages before sitting down to write this column and read my trade publications.

Seems like many of my friends are retiring, but I don't think I could keep up with the pace.

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Speaking of retiring ... one of my favorite people is retiring from Southeast Missouri State University after 36 years of teaching in the music department ... DR. JOHN SHELTON.

An accomplished pianist and organist, he also directed the choir at Centenary Methodist Church for 25 years where for a number of years he put up with my antics and sincere but often off-key vocal efforts. Quite painful to him, I'm sure, because of his perfect-pitch ear.

John has been another of the many quiet, unsung heroes who make this a great community. He's taught hundreds of students not only his unique skills as a musician, but also his philosophy on volunteering time to improve the arts and cultural environment of their communities ... wherever that may be.

All this, in addition to being a wonderful husband and father to three children. A role model ... an angel to many.

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A recent Post-Dispatch editorial illustrates one of my Sunday school's lessons that today some people can rationalize and justify any idea or activity in the belief that "there is some good in everything" or that pluralism of all activities and choice are good for us. Here are excerpts from the editorial:

New York as Disneyland

From the provinces, the news about New York City couldn't seem better. Crime, is down. Broadway is booming, theaters old and new are packing them in and the once-shabby 42nd Street has been scrubbed of its porno shops and flop houses. The city is flush with money and is considering the kind of big, brawny new infrastructure projects not countenanced since the days of Fiorello LaGuardia. One survey reports the impossible: Impressions of the city America loves to hate are improving, not just in New York, but across the country.

So why are some New Yorkers grousing? Why, on a recent cultural pilgrimage, could they be found huddled at an overcrowded cafe so deep in the anarchic East Village that there is no risk of running into any of the dreaded touristas? New York, it seems, is going to hell in a hand basket. It's the property values, the tourists, the cost of getting a shirt cleaned, a computer fixed, or new soles put on the old loafers.

On and on they grouse, and to New York observers it might seem like just more of the same love-hate relationship that New Yorkers have always had with their city. But this is more than the routine desperation. Some of the complaints may seem perverse, at first: One laments that a dirty bookstore in his neighborhood is being closed. "If the people from Pennsyltucky don't like it, they can go elsewhere."

But behind the quirky sensibility is honest concern about the direction of the city. The dirty bookstore kept people on the street during the early morning hours, creating a sense of safety. Even more, to this particular non-conformist, the bookstore had symbolic importance. It said the city is filled with niches, with dark, but safe spaces for those who don't fit in elsewhere ...

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.