Murray Unruh is an Artist and My Brother

Murray is one of my two younger brothers. Murray was born in St. Catharines in 1947 five years my junior and when we were young I was the one who expressed himself artistically. He was almost an adolescent before he received corrective lenses to improve his sight. He considers that to be his emergence into a new appreciation of a world of light, colour and definition. He began to pay attention to the beauty around him. I could not have imagined that in Murray’s adult years not only would he develop an interest in painting but he would become a fine and versatile artist with a keen appreciation for what makes a good picture. He lives in a beautiful agricultural area, the fruit and wine country of the Niagara district of Ontario. He has watched this growing vineyard industry and recorded with his brushes and paint. He has practiced his craft like many of us as a hobbyist for twenty five years. Scenery, still life and now lately, a venture into some abstract expressionism of spiritual themes. On his website he mentions a current series entitled “Metaphors for Life” which he envisions as seven distinct pieces and as they are being developed he will describe the process and themes.

He is a man of faith, Christian faith. Like me he too was a pastor for many years. Recently he has identified with a group of people seeking to launch an attractive Christian witness in downtown St. Catharines. It will be an open community with some appeal to friends in the art community. He is a facilitator now rather than a primary leader and he has been asked to establish an art gallery as an essential aspect of this gathering place. That interests me. I will look forward to hearing how the arts and Christian ministry cooperate.

During this new season of artistic ambition he is making his art available to others for viewing and purchase. I am proud of my brother. He is a friend to many people and a helper. In the last image that I display for you today Murray has recorded our father and Murray’s two sons when they were boys and the three of them visited the roaring water of the Niagara Gorge. Dad is gone now so this an evocative memory for our family.

His VINTAGE IMPRESSIONS Art by Murray Unruh website can show you his other work.

August 12th, Our Forty-Second Wedding Anniversary

I proposed to Christine over the New Year celebration that took us from 1966 to 1967. She came with me from our autumn semester at college to my family home in St. Catharines, Ontario. My proposal took place in Niagara Falls, within sight of the colourful night spotlights shining on the cascading water. I was not on bended knee but bended butt, since both of us were sitting in my father’s car. As I opened a velvet ring box, I asked Christine Francis May Langlois to be my wife. I wasn’t confident that I had selected a ring that she would like, so my jeweler friend, Dave Burke from Bancroft, supplied with others. From a paper bag under the car seat I pulled six more rings and set all seven boxes across the dashboard. Christine still wears today, the ring that I had chosen for her. She says she still loves it and she is glad that she never changed the high setting so popular 42 years ago.

Two years ago, on our fortieth anniversary, Christine and I together with our children and grandchildren, commemorated that marriage marker as the two of us exchanged vows once again and then our grandchildren released forty red helium-filled balloons into the skies, and we watched these rising representatives of our promises disappear into the distance.

I began my college experience and then stayed out for a year to work. When I returned, Christine, having enrolled the previous year, was there as a sophomore. I liked her at first glance. I developed a ridiculous crush very early which was to be unrequited for some time because she was interested in other guys. In fact she was dating one with a shiny new model Chrysler. I had a VW beetle which I had received in trade for a painting. I painted the car blue with red wheel rims and white hubcaps and white running boards. When her relationship with Chrysler was over, I wasted no time. On one of our first dates in that little car with holes in the floor boards, I sang love songs to her. “At the end of the rainbow, you’ll find a pot of gold. At the end of a story, you’ll find it’s all been told. But just tell me you love me, and you are only mine, and our love will go on ‘til the end of time.” I loved her long legs in the pleated skirts and the matching sweaters. I loved her long chestnut hair. I loved her dancing dark brown eyes. I loved her.

On a sunny and warm day in August 1967, the year of Canada’s Centennial, the year of Expo ’67 in Montreal, we exchanged vows before family and friends. We were so young. Our parents have passed away. We have grown older. We are our parents now.

I love Christine still. She wanted always to serve God. I was training for Christian work as a church pastor. She was a soprano of astounding ability being trained classically. So many of her personal aspirations over the years were set aside to accommodate motherhood, geographical moves, and ministry life in the proverbial goldfish bowl where everyone watched. She encouraged me to complete a master’s degree and a doctoral program but for various reasons out of her control she couldn’t complete her ARCT in voice or get a teacher’s certification. Yet she has taught private lessons, begun a music school, led choirs, led a national worship leaders association, and shown interest in countless young people through the years. She is a woman of commendable character, spirituality, resilience, and joy. She has always made me happy to come home and she makes me happy to be alive. Happy 42nd anniversary sweetheart!