Honouring through Story—Carolyn R. Wilker

This past week has been an exciting one as I distributed copies of my first picture book, Harry’s Trees, to my family. The book started as a way for my parents' great grandchildren to remember their great grandpa who died in May this past year. Some of the children are preschoolers and in early school age years, as my own grandchildren are, and may not remember him later, but it is my hope that they will enjoy the story and some day appreciate the legacy he left for them.

The theme of trees has been paramount in Dad’s life. He learned about them as a boy. They were Christmas trees; they were firewood to heat their home. They were a home for birds, a place to pick fruit, and as a boy, something to climb. They're a way of holding the earth in place, of cleaning the air. He learned lessons of life through them too, through the season changes and a place where squirrels climb and birds build their nests.

As Dad grew older, he learned more about trees, such as how to trim them when they were broken so that they might continue to thrive, and when they needed to come down. Just as important he taught us to name them and respect them as well.

Dad learned about grafting branches from one tree and putting them on another, much as doctors take an organ and transplant it into another body when the donor has died, so that someone else might have a second chance at a healthy life.

Dad checking out the trees on a holiday in Jamaica

 Fellow writers offered much wonderful feedback on my story in various stages, such as arranging the story into seasons. I thank them all for their valuable suggestions.

As I celebrate this book, and the memories of Dad that it evokes, along with the vivid and colourful illustrations of my talented artist, Maja Wizor, I dedicate it to my father for all he gave us as we were growing up, especially the passion he shared of honouring God’s creation.

a sample of  illustrations within the book

Carolyn R. Wilker, author of Once Upon a Sandbox and contributor to several anthologies, including Hot Apple Cider with Cinnamon. Watch for Good Grief People book coming in late February. 

www.carolynwilker.ca

One Step at a Time—Carolyn R. Wilker

We have a framed print of an original painting on our wall, created by my brother-in-law, Bryan. The scene is of a lovely sunny winter day with a road that winds through some bush perhaps, shadows of the trees on either side crisscrossing the snowy road, and an ice-covered lake just to the right of where the road curves to the left around it. I don’t know if Bryan painted it from a real scene or created it from his imagination, and I don’t know where he was in his life when he painted it. I’ve never asked him, but I might do that someday.

photo by C. Wilker, art by Bryan Pfaff

 I look at that painting often and wonder what’s on the other side of the trees just past the bend in the road. Is there a cabin where someone lives? Might there be smoke coming from a chimney and a fire in the fireplace where someone is going to visit on such a cold day? Or is it simply a look at nature in its frozen beauty on a calm sunny day?

Winding roads are not new. We see them when we hike on nature paths, in photographs, and paintings like my brother-in-law’s where the artist leads the eye just beyond the present scene. Like our lives, when we wonder what lies ahead, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just is.

I remember years ago asking my friend, Maryann a question, “What if we could see what happens in the future?” I was thinking near future, around the next bend in the road, but not too far.

She said, “You probably don’t want to know.”

Indeed, I probably may not like all I see. But I might want to know some things, such as a friend outrunning a cancer diagnosis, a child growing through difficult times to succeed in some way later. Those would be good to know. It might even be good to have assurance that a career that’s challenging now will work out better later on. But I don’t know until I get there.

Maybe it’s the reassurance I get from God that he’ll be with me, and you, on every step of our journey if we only ask. And the prayers of others, the hugs from friends that help as I grapple with a loved one’s terminal illness. All of these things encourage me and give me strength.

 Some moments I want to shut out other responsibilities and tasks to concentrate only on the one in hospice, even though it’s tiring. I have other family members—daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren. I have friends, a job, and other commitments. Some I can put on hold for awhile, but others are like a fire—the right kind of fire—that need tending. Thus I reach out to others to help me through this time and I pray a lot, as I drive, as I walk, and at night before I go to sleep.

I pray for peace, understanding and to see more clearly and to treat others I meet along the way with compassion, such as a woman at the hospice who needed a hug, or someone at the grocery store, for I don’t know what others are going through either. It could be someone who’s just lost a job, their means of living, or lost a best friend or have even lost hope.

Please, Lord, be gentle with me now as I stand on this precipice, as I put in this waiting time and contemplate again that next bend in the road, even while I’m standing in the present.

 

www.carolynwilker.ca                                                                                                    

When the Bright Lights Dim - Gibson

The “Painter of Light,” as the world knew him, died last month. Artist and author Thomas Kinkade, widely known as a devout Christian, was among the world’s highest earning and most popular living artists.


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)

Among other places, author, newspaper columnist and broadcaster Kathleen Gibson ponders faith and life in Sunny Side Up and on Simple Words.