An Invitation or Two
We bundled up on a cold, starry night and headed to Washington DC for a special evening out. Our daughter was away at youth camp so my husband and I decided to check out the immersive Van Gogh exhibit that we had heard about. We had seen pictures on Instagram of rooms alive with Van Gogh’s paint strokes and wanted to experience it for ourselves.
The exhibit began like most, with a timeline his life‘s events and major markers in his story. Among other things, we learned that out of all two thousand paintings, Van Gogh only sold one. He wasn’t good at school and failed at many of the jobs he attempted. After a long battle with mental health, he tragically ended his own life.
It was a lot to ponder. Here was a man whose life certainly read failure on many levels yet on this night thousands of people were standing in awe at his amazing works. The juxtaposition between what he saw in himself and what we were seeing was staggering and got me thinking about failure and success and how to differentiate between the two. As we stared at wild brush strokes vivid blue and green, the reality surfaced that my own view of life is limited. I sensed God inviting me to hold space for the idea that like Van Gogh, what He sees in me and my small life is far different and perhaps much more impactful than what I see myself.
I let the thoughts rest as we wound our way through the exhibit to his life sized blue bedroom. The curious thing was that his own paintings hung crookedly on the wall right above his bed. I chuckled as I thought of all the paintings I had hung around our home. I whispered under my breath as if Van Gogh were standing next to me to commiserate,“That’s what we do when we can’t sell our paintings. We enjoy them ourselves!” Maybe the enjoyment of my own work is ok, and should even be celebrated. This iconic blue bedroom was a sacred space and those paintings; those journeys of self expression and joy belonged there as a testament to the courage of being seen even to one’s self.
Lastly, we entered a spacious room with benches and yellow and white cloth beach chairs strewn about. Piano music filled the air while moving images of Van Gogh’s paintings covered all four walls from ceiling to floor. First came the French countryside with blues and greens, stew colored haystacks and a sky covered with clouds that floated by. This faded into large fluffy sunflowers that melted down covering us all with a golden glow.
The interesting thing was that though the room was filled with people no one made a sound. A hushed awe hung in the air. It was astounding and maybe almost holy. There was a sacredness to being collectively surrounded by all that beauty.
As I sat and soaked it in, a little girl near me, tired of sitting in her mom’s lap got up and began to dance. She spun on her toes with childlike freedom and moved to the music and the sunflowers floating down all around her. She was doing what came natural to her at the moment and her response to this beauty was fitting.
Beauty draws us in. It draws us to God’s heart and then He does the most amazing thing. He dumps that beauty all over us until we are dripping with it and spreading it all over the place without even knowing it. Here was an another invitation. It was an invitation to be fully present and with childlike abandon soak up God’s beauty letting it affect me; letting it change me, and flow out of me to be the balm of God’s healing hand to our hurting world. As Van Gogh’s night sky stretched across the wall, God stretch out his hand and with a bow at the waist and a smile on His face, He asked me to join Him with those swirling stars, in a dance of grace.
And so with my heart flooded with beauty and my head full of thought we exited the hall and headed out to the car. I paused and gazed up into the dark night sky. My breath hung heavy in the cold air. Somehow the yellow stars and crescent moon looked different to me, more alive and a bit more known. I had been invited to join their dance that night; and got to see God on the canvas in all His glorious light.