Two Paintings

There are two expensive prints of paintings in my house. I mustn't claim they are paintings, but prints of paintings, even though to simply state they are paintings makes me come across a bit more cultured. However, though they are prints, they are of fine quality, matted with accentuating colors, and encased in carefully selected frames. Both are gifts from my mother, both at Christmases, and both are special.

The first painting is by Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son. It is quite large and enclosed in a very expensive maroon and black, marble-like frame, and it hangs perfectly in the space above the small, thin fireplace mantle in living room. The painting is rather dark, ragged, even shadowy, and were it not for the image at its center - and the wonder of a story on which it is based - it might draw out distinct feelings of melancholy. But because of the two main figures upon which Rembrandt chose only to shed significant light, what is viewed is compassion verbed out in human forms, a father with a heart stricken with sudden joy clutching his dirty and despicable son's head to his chest. Love like has never been viewed before. Love far beyond degree ...

The second painting is a smaller print, encased in a rustic wooden frame that could be pine, or mesquite, or western oak (I really don't know much about the wood of trees). It is a painting called, The Circuit Rider, by southwestern contemporary artist, Kenneth Wyatt. Looking into this painting is like looking out a window into a windswept, snowy roll of hills, spotted with thrush and sage. In the center stands a man who cannot be clothed warmly enough for the darkening winter eve, despite his cowboy duster and his wide-brimmed hat. He stands beside his patient horse, staring down into a yawning, stretching valley. Behind his back, not in shame but in anticipation, he clutches a worn Bible in his left hand. He is still, pensive, and solemnly eager to move on into the valley. For in the far distance, at the base of a rising hill enclosing the valley into a sloping canyon, sits a simple, isolated house. A trail of smoke meanders upward into the chilled air, and even though it is nothing but a speck, this home appears very inviting, especially for a tired messenger of the Gospel, who seems unwilling to cease his duty of riding across the countryside, visiting those who dwell in the wild, and sharing with them a truth he holds onto tighter than the reigns on his horse ...

These two paintings are a reality that I desire for my life - this is why I write about them tonight (also because, though it is past 1 AM, I cannot coax myself into bed yet). They are a reality that I have not yet fully achieved, and I speak this on as physical a spiritual level as can be. If I had to dartboard my position within the scope of the lifestory these two paintings communicate, I would assume I am somewhere in the middle of them - somewhere between returning broken, poor, and needy to my recklessly loving Father, and stepping out in calm, faithful resolve to tell the world the euangelion, the good news, of Christ.

However, there are times when I feel I have not even come to a point that the lowdown and dirty son has in Rembrandt's masterpiece. If I were the prodigal son, a more accurate parable would have included me returning to the distant country and squandering a hundred - a thousand, a million - different inheritances, and returning shamefully to the father every time. Would the father still run to me and reveal himself undignified, hold me and render himself unclean, and kiss me and render himself a fool?

So much more is my fear that not only have I not found myself as confidently resolute as the circuit rider, but that I shall never finish such a path to becoming like him - I shall never be the servant God wants - does God need? - me to be.

And yet, these two paintings (prints, of course) hang in my house, and day after day my eyes glance past them. Rarely do I look - really give them the attention they most certainly deserve. But, gifts as they were, perhaps they were meant for more than a possession I can one day pass on to my own children (if I am so blessed). Perhaps they were meant for moments like this, late into the night, when I am desperate for an assuring voice from heaven approving my current lifewalk - when I am starving for a soothing gust of wonder. Maybe they are meant to remind me simply that whatever road I find myself on, whether it be facing a familiar home of grace or an unfamiliar destination of purpose, the only right move is to head in their direction.