September 8, 2025
I find myself thinking back to that one night where the sky and heavens were turbulent, with the clouds moving rapidly above us, revealing the stars behind them, as we were handing out food, clothes, medical supplies, and hygiene products to those in downtown encampments. Like in van Gogh’s painting, The Starry Night, we were nestled into the Earth, protected, or perhaps isolated, from the heavens above, and the clouds and stars undulated. In van Gogh’s painting, a church steeple reaches towards the heavens, connecting the earthly and the divine, mirroring the dark and flamelike cypress tree in the foreground. We are reminded of death by the cypress tree, which also reaches towards the heavens. Don’t we all try to do so? To be closer to God?