“Sir, it’s five o’clock” a Josyln Art Museum guard said, “I’m going to have to ask you to please leave.” “Wait” I said, “it’s five?” as I pulled myself from a two-by-three feet hand drawn Creation page from Genesis on treated calfskin in a humidified glass case. “Yes” he said, “we’re closing, sir.” I tailed it out the museum in late November having spent four hours pouring over the closest graphic novel to divinity — the St. John’s Bible — in awe of the fifteen years of craft.

I sped along I-29 South from Omaha to Kansas City as quickly as the dirty silver Colorado inline-four cylinder would carry me to make it in time to my baby brother, Edward’s, thirtieth birthday steak diner in Lenexa. As the sun set along the old lands of the Otoe Indians bordering the Kansa tribes, I prayed “people of the South Wind, carry me home in haste.” My mind swam, saturated in Wales-made illuminated manuscripts, from cave paintings of hunting conquests in Lascaux, France — the oldest art the world knows; to the eternal mystery of feminine wisdom; to Israel’s great prophet who, after miraculously leading his people from slavery and exile, only glimpsed the Promised Land. I made it home just in time for a Kansas City steak among brothers.