Day 17 - Van Gough

Yesterday Josh had a day off school ( much to the annoyance of his two brothers who go to another school and dont get their St Patrick's day holiday until today.  Josh gets two days!) so he and I went to the beach to walk the dogs and have a spot of brunch.

We managed to nicely dodge the heavy showers and ended up in a seafront cafe having a big fat fry up at half eleven.  Whilst we were waiting for our food I suddenly realised that they were playing the radio, and the track which was on was this   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wrNFDxCRzU
Vincent.  By Don Mclean.

This song was the backdrop to my teens.  I played it constantly and it made me cry all the time.  There is something so sad about the song, and so beautiful.  A gang of friends and I used to take a blanket and a ghetto blaster down to the river with whatever food we could scrounge from home and spend long summer days just messing about and listening to Don Mclean.  I think we listened to other stuff too - but this song definitely transports me straight back to the 1980s and days of idle innocence.

It wasn't until much much later that I actually learned the story of Vincent Van Gough.  It is an amazing and tragic one.  Did you know that he never intended to become an artist?  His mission in life was to take the gospel to the poor.  His father and his grandfather were both preachers and Vincent really wanted to serve the poor so he went to work in a hideously deprived mining community in Belgium which had suffered a tragedy in the mine.  People were sick and injured, could barely afford to feed themselves and were living in appallingly bad housing.  Vincent lived among them sharing everything he had and living in the same poverty in order to win some for Christ.  Which he did.  But the established church was scandalised by his standard of living and poverty of dress and refused to support his endeavours.   Later he applied to be a missionary but was turned down because he didnt have any academic qualifications.    It was on the back of the rejections by the church that he went to art college.   Much of his work has Biblical themes.  But we don't get to see those paintings much because they aren't the ones which have fetched millions at auction,

To read a more full description of Vincent's life try this blog page which gives a good flavour of the man.
http://blog.godreports.com/2012/11/vincent-van-goghs-unappreciated-journey-with-christ/   


When I get to heaven ( assuming that I do, and then assuming that heaven is the sort of place where you can meet those who have gone before ) I am going to go right up to Mr Van Gough and give him the biggest hug.  I think he must have been the sort of man who just became overwhelmed with the suffering that he saw in the world.   Sensitive , compassionate, vulnerable and spiritual.   I heard a radio programme not long ago positing a theory about why he cut off his ear.  Apparently he had befriended a young woman who had had her ear bitten off by a dog and who was working as a maid in order to try to scrape together the money to have surgery to improve her appearance.   It is now thought that in a supreme    (and probably mentally disturbed) act of self sacrifice, Vincent cut off his own ear and gave it to her.  Presumably in the hope that it could help to heal her wound.

What a guy eh?

Im betting that in heaven there will not be a Van Gough painting anywhere to be seen.  Because what is worth several million pounds here on earth is worth nothing there.  But what will be on display is the faith and kindness and sacrifice of a man who was remarkably like Jesus.