The Mosaic

The Starry Night - 

My son has a great affinity for Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.” I’m not sure where it started, but a few years ago he started recreating “The Starry Night” on his own. He’d draw it on cocktail napkins, scratch pieces of paper, and once on a canvas Christmas morning in the backyard. For his birthday last year, his grammy bought him a 2,000+ piece Lego set of the iconic painting, and he completed it on his own in less than a month. The box said it was for 18 years of age and up.

Last week I went to New York City for a pastor’s conference, and he asked me to go see it, assuring me that the original was at the Modern Museum of Art in Manhattan. I wasn’t so sure, but turns out, after I googled it, it’s there - room 502, on the fifth floor.

During the conference, we were given three hours of silent retreat - three hours to spend however we wanted in the city, in silence. I decided to take my trip to the MoMA then. Without speaking a word, I found my way to the subway, took the 20-minute ride up the island, got off and walked to the entrance of the museum. I bought my ticket and took five escalators up to the fifth floor. I didn't know where to start so I went to the first room I saw, room 523. It connected to another room, room 522, Then another, room 521. I kept following the rooms as they decreased in number getting closer and closer to “The Starry Night.”

515, 514, 513... 509, 508... 504, 503... To my surprise, my heart started pounding. I don't know why, but my body was becoming overwhelmed with emotion. Something about anticipating the moment, the moment in which I would see for the first time the original painting that has inspired so much and so many, including my seven-year-old son, made my body pulse with energy.

I went through the final doorway to room 502, and there it was. Right there. There were about a dozen people crowded in front of it, but it wasn’t hard to see it, and eventually I had my turn in the front, standing two feet from the masterpiece. And I wept. I ugly wept, and, unfortunately, I had no kleenex. So, tears and snot just fell across my face as I took in the beauty of such art.

Eventually I sat down on a bench nearby and pulled up Cheryl Strayed’s book “Tiny Beautiful Things.” I had remembered that she wrote a letter once about van Gogh. A woman had written to her asking for advice about a sexual assault she had suffered. Cheryl wrote back and shared that a close friend of hers, who’s a semi-famous artist, had been sexually assaulted three different times in the course of her life by three different men.

Cheryl asked her once how she was able to keep going and make such beautiful art despite the horrors that happened to her. Her friend said, “At a certain point we get to decide who it is we allow to influence us... I could allow myself to be influenced by three men who abused me, or I could allow myself to be influenced by van Gogh. I chose van Gogh.”

I sat on that bench and thought about that line. “I chose van Gogh.” I also thought about my son and his love for the painting, and all I could think was that I hope his life derives more meaning from van Gogh than all the other horrors this world has to offer.

Life is so brutal, we know that acutely after this last weekend, and I hope these things in some ways influence us - influence us to action, to vote, to speak up and fight. But I also hope our lives can derive meaning from all the beauty of this world too. And I hope our hearts remain soft enough that we can stop and admire the gifts of life and appreciate the wonder of the starry night.

Pastor Victoria