prayerbookproject

wings to fly above life

September 12, 1875

Dear Theo,

Flügel, Flügel über's Leben!
Flügel über Grab und Tod!

[Wings, wings to fly above life!
Wings to fly above the grave and death!]

That is what we want, and I am beginning to understand that we can get them. Don't you think Father has them? And you know how he got them? By prayer and the fruit of prayer - patience and faith - and from the Bible that was a light on his path and a lamp ahead of his feet.

This morning I heard a beautiful sermon on the theme: Forget what is behind you; the preacher said for example: Have more hope than memories; what there has been seriousness and blessed in your past life is not lost; wait no longer therefore, you will find it elsewhere, but advance … All these things have become new in Jesus Christ.

Keep heart and believe me,

Your loving brother, Vincent

bow to humble things

He Himself is the great Man of Sorrows who knows our ills, Who was called the son of a carpenter, though He was the Son of God and the great Healer of sick souls. Who laboured for 30 years in a humble carpenter's shop to fulfil God's will. And God wills that in imitation of X, man should live and walk humbly on earth, not reaching for the sky, but bowing to humble things, learning from the Gospel to be meek & humble of heart.

Vincent van Gogh in a letter to Theo on 26 December 1878

sorrowful yet always rejoicing

I witnessed Van Gogh to Mondrian: Modern Art from the Kröller-Müller Museum at the Seattle Art Museum this past summer and the colors are still swimming in my head. The art of Vincent van Gogh drew me to the story and life of Vincent van Gogh. There are certain things that everybody knows about the man. 1) He cut off his ear. 2) He committed suicide. So when I try to explain to people the influence that he has had (or is having) in my life there is a palpable tension that enters the room. Is this really the best life worth emulating?

His is indeed a tragic story. It is easy for us to dismiss his life and only seek his work. It is also easy for us to make him out to be a saint and forget that he was a sinner. Henri Nouwen considered him a "wounded healer" and this is the path I choose to follow. I have begun reading Van Gogh's letters for the first time and want to occasionally share from them here.

from a letter to Theo (his brother) on August 26, 1876,

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed. I want - to be bound to Christ with unbreakable bonds and to feel these bonds. To be sorrowful yet always rejoicing. To live in and for Christ, to be one of the poor in His kingdom, steeped in the leaven, filled with His spirit, impelled by His Love, reposing in the Father with the repose of which I wrote to you in my last letter. To become one who finds repose in Him alone, who desires nothing but Him on earth, and who abides in the Love of God and Christ, in whom we are fervently bound to one another.