The man who captured divine light in his paintings

Thomas Kinkade's paintings capture light in a way that no other paintings manage to do, at least the paintings I have seen up to this point in my life. There is absolutely something divine about that light and the feelings it creates in the viewer. The closest I can come to adequately describing his paintings is that they portray a vision of heaven, a vision that I can relate to--coming home, the feeling of belonging somewhere (inclusive), family, love, warmth, spirituality, inspiration, joy, and pastoral settings that are all about peace. They tap into a universal longing in us all--the longing to be a part of an all-encompassing love as felt in that light, and to feel that peace; they are divinely-inspired. Perhaps the artist felt that longing as well; his personal life was certainly not as peaceful as the life portrayed in his paintings. Regardless of how Kinkade lived his life, he had a God-given talent that he used well to produce some beautiful paintings. He did not hide 'his light under a bushel basket'. His critics have accused him of being overly-sentimental, among other things, but I don't agree with them. I don't find his paintings sentimental, I find them to be spiritually-influenced visualizations of how life could be, and perhaps that is what the artist both longed for and wished to impart.

Moments of peace

Everyone has their own idea of what heaven might be like. Mine is a sunny warm summer day, with all the windows in my home open, a soft breeze blowing, and sunlight streaming in from all angles. I’m standing in the kitchen, my favorite room in the house, puttering about, as I love to do. No cares, no worries, completely relaxed. I love that state of mind. Maybe working on a recipe, or re-potting a few of my plants. Or leaning on the sill of an open window, looking out onto the world below and about me. Listening to the birds, talking to the pigeons on the balcony, or watching the yellow jackets as they fly in for a visit and then out again. If our cat was still alive, she would have hopped up onto the sill and joined me, and we would have been looking out at the world together. A little slice of heaven—a world of sunshine and peace, a natural world, peopled by animals, birds, nature, living things. It’s what my heart seeks return to when I’ve managed to move myself far away from it, or when I’ve let the many negative distractions in the world move me away from it. 

The priest at mass tonight talked about the necessity of moving ourselves ‘up’ and away from the dark cellar of depressing or sensational news stories that the media bombards us with, because it is the only way to find inner stillness and peace, both of which are needed for prayer. It’s hard to pray when your mind is full of anxiety and uneasiness, when your mind is stuck in the dark cellar. To leave the cellar means getting up and turning off the TV, or not starting the day by sitting down to breakfast with a newspaper full of depressing news stories. I don’t want to shut out the world, nor do I want to ignore social injustices and moral outrages. I simply want to choose how to let them into my heart and soul and how I want to deal with them. I don’t want to be lectured to or informed by the media that this is what I should be paying attention to, or else. I have realized that I cannot tackle all the injustices in the world; I’ve got to start small and accept that I will make a small difference. Mother Teresa also said something similar to that. You need to start at home or with the situations around you. Otherwise you will end up feeling depressed and defeated because you are not able to make the world into a better place. And that defeated feeling helps no one. So I am thankful for the little moments of heaven that are allowed me in this life. They restore my faith in my ability to make a difference in this world, however small it is.   

Some famous quotes about heaven

Just to balance out yesterday's post--famous quotes about hell--here are some famous quotes about heaven. The different views of heaven and resulting quotes are as different as the individuals who have uttered them. That was true for yesterday's quotes about hell as well.

Heaven means to be one with God.

Confucius

Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honors depend upon heaven.

Confucius

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Mother Teresa

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

William Shakespeare

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

William Shakespeare

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

William Shakespeare

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

C. S. Lewis

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Steve Jobs

The "kingdom of Heaven" is a condition of the heart - not something that comes "upon the earth" or "after death."

Friedrich Nietzsche

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

Margaret Thatcher

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Plato

Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.

Plautus

You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.

Jimi Hendrix

Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.

David Hume

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

Ayn Rand

If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there.

Martin Luther

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

George Bernard Shaw

My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.

Billy Graham

A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.

Boethius

Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.

Henri Frederic Amiel

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.

Robert Louis Stevenson