After his death, I sat with one of his books on my lap, and one of my grandbeans at my side. Reading aloud. Every so often she stroked a page. “That’s SO beautiful, isn’t it Nana?”
Indeed. Page after page showed heavenly views. Homes and cottages with lighted windows; abundant, colourful gardens, tidy stone pathways leading to quiet forests, and skies resplendent with God’s glory.
The artist chose to illuminate his paintings with words like these from poet Eliza Cook: “Sweet is the hour that brings us home, where all will spring to meet us…”
Kinkade was good at making people long for home. Repeated references to his own home and family cheered and encouraged admirers of his work: Keep your hearts at home. Enjoy the good God has given you there, at your side. Those were Kinkade’s messages.
But the artist’s simple pastoral canvases, of late, hid something disturbing. The last several years of the fifty-four year old painter’s life included great personal darkness. As critics in the art world accused him of schamltz, sentimental trip-trap, and the equivalent of artistic harlotry, reports of his bizarre behavior increased. Gallery owners accused him of defrauding people in the name of God. He battled with alcoholism. He replaced his wife with another woman, and became estranged from his family.
Pedestals are perilous places. Pride and popularity taper up to the jagged pinnacle of greed and wealth, and not many can keep their balance there. Apparently Mr. Kinkade lost his. I grieve that, but I understand it.
And this: When my grandchild and I finished reading that book on the warmth and blessings of home, every page filled with something that fingered her tender heart, she closed the book, stood up and said, Nana, I want to go home. So I walked her home. Her daddy greeted her with a hug and welcomed her there.
Good work, Thomas, I thought. No matter what you were.
Like Mr. Kinkade, I strive to serve God and others well with the gifts he has given. But also like him, I am a worm. An earth-crawler with dirt on my face, the hope of heaven in my spirit, and a prayer in my heart: “Lord, may the seeds I plant grow a longing in people’s souls for all things right and good.”
But God forbid that thinking I stand, I fall. For one day he will judge me and Mr. Kinkade and you, too—not on what has grown from our lives, but on whether he finds love and acceptance of his own Son, Jesus Christ, nestled in our hearts.
As did my grandbean, I pray to arrive safely home to be met by my Father’s embrace.
(Sunny Side Up-wk. of April 30)
4 comments:
Shadows are given birth when something obstructs the passage of light.
Kathleen, thank you for sharing your heartwarming story, even with the tinge of sobering sadness cast by the frailty of the dusty human frame; it is instructive for us all.
This is beautiful, Kathleen! I think you express the longing in many a writer's heart.
Kathleen, I am playing catch-up with my reading and so this comment is late. I hadn't realized Thomas Kinkade had died. He was so young... as a nurse I wonder about complications of alcoholism. My brother, a Christian, died at 48 from alcoholism. He had fallen off the wagon after 10 years sober. He loved Jesus and believed in His grace. I recently was reminded of Brennan Manning who has battled alcoholism all his wonderful Christian life. There are many -isms out there. But God is a God of Amazing Grace.
Thanks for this post. I love your story-telling.
Thank you, friends, for leaving your kind thoughts on this. I pondered long over this one. Blessings...K.
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