This troubled and transcendent mind
this heart that gave us more than empty words through eyes full of beauty
sight
this life that painted further into the soul of simple work
this rough beauty sketches were ways out from his longings unmatched
this heart channeled out equal to its own terrain
this blood flowing back into the fields of flowers captivating his chamber
Vincent painted colors to canvas in a field or in a city. He lived in both the rural and urban and traveled the tension between them giving him color with dimension. When he attempted to speak his thoughts about God he was quieted by the religious order...so he chose to speak in the way untraveled by many. His loneliness dreamed for a community of artists that might understand him, yet his internal tension drove them away. He lived with a prostitute and her children in one of his attempts to find his home. The tension within, the losses mounting, relationships squandered, and his eventual mysterious death at his own hands or anothers' leaves us with the many impressions...but what we see is one life on canvas.
Vincent's art is some of my favorite to take in. The way he saw color and life and beauty are his words of healing on canvas to me- a soul traveling the road between. As I am drawn to the light and color of simple life, I am drawn into grace. I think about my life and wanderings, living between the pulled strings of life- the harmony and discord. My eyes meet the aching beauty of canvas drawings, some showing and some unpainted, the colors seen and unseen.
I bring this back around to the wild reaching creation we are. The beauty and strength we find growing, maturing, and giving from the tension within and without. The reaching Vincent expressed gave us cause for remembering and dreaming within the balance of Grace. We can find more life when we ask to see the tension and stay there unpacking our bags. The Creator smiles.
