Van Gogh and I are kindred spirits.

"The combination of life in the country, Something on High, and one's service to others constituted for Vincent the best of lives. One of the unresolved struggles in Vincent's life was his concern for the oppressed of the newly industrialized cities, yet his love and need for the rural countryside of his childhood memories. Would he choose the new city or the old countryside? Would he paint the cities of Dickens and the Goncourt brothers or become a peasant painter like Millet? Perhaps his life was too brief to reach resolution, but most often he maintained a suspicion of the city as an environment unsuited for profound thought, and chose the countryside for recuperation and labor."


One of my favorite books is Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest by Cliff Edwards. Every time I read it, I notice more correlations between myself and Van Gogh. This may trouble those of you who know nothing about this great artist apart from his mutilated ear - if this is true for you, I do indeed recommend this book!

Living in the city this past year brought a new kind of flavor to my life. Houston has often been on my mind these past several weeks. And yet I can't help wondering if, as an artist, I will continue to find myself seeking out a quieter environment. It is mostly in retrospect that I see how hard it was for me to think well and listen well in the city. I crave the countryside; broad green spaces, orchards, organic forms...I think it is no coincidence that part of the etymology of my first name is "late summer" (my favorite time of year) and "harvester" (I seem to reap a whole lot more than I sow), that my middle name means "meadow," and that my surname means "new town" (I always seem to be going someplace new).

The truth is that I feel very much alive here at Koinonia, only two weeks in. The sunshine, dirt, and wildlife are breaths of fresh air to my soul. But like Van Gogh, I'm feeling torn between the city and the country. Maybe it's that my experiences of the city are wrapped up in beautiful memories of Mission Year, and memories here are only beginning to grow.

Today as I dug around in the garden dirt, Van Gogh's words came to mind: "If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying Bismark's policy? No. He studies a single blade of grass...we must return to nature in spite of our education and our work in a world of convention." (Letter 542)

And here's some closing food for thought by Parker Palmer, in celebration of community, nature, and late summer: "Here is a summertime truth: abundance is a communal act, the joint creation of an incredibly complex ecology in which each part functions on behalf of the whole and, in return, is sustained by the whole. Community doesn't just create abundance - community is abundance. If we could learn that equation from the world of nature, the human world might be transformed." (Let Your Life Speak)