In this sermon, Pastor Brooks discusses the seasons of life and shares the story of Claude Monet who created some of his greatest masterpieces in the latter years of his life. Listen to this sermon now.
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13
Wrinkles, gray hair, and baldness may be regarded by many as the signs of aging, but for others, they are the signs of money to be made. The global market for anti-aging products and services is now well over $250 billion a year. There are all sorts of creams, pills, and injections one can buy in this scam-filled market. Then, there are the logic defying books that promise to help readers grow young and reverse aging. While a lot has been said about baby boomers and the anti-aging market, one could rightfully argue that this market relies not on people growing older but on ageism. Interwoven into the fabric of our everyday world are the biases that encourage people to avoid and deny the realities of aging. Such avoidance might even seem natural. Since growing old eventually leads to one of the most taboo topics of all—death, it would seem normal that people would want to stay “young,” but our culture has not always been this way. Think about the Colonial era in this country. Instead of trying to look young, men wanted to look old. They wore powdered white wigs to do so. Back then the best seats in the meetinghouse were reserved for those who were considered old. It wasn’t until around 1820 that our society went from being one in which old age inspired veneration to one in which it led to avoidance and denial.
The result isn’t just the creation of a booming market. It’s a societal set-up for depression. Our culture instills the belief that we can control our own destiny. The problem is that as we get older and older we encounter more and more things over which we have little to no control. As a psychologist at Northwestern University notes, the death of a parent, the illness of a spouse, or the need for a hip or knee replacement can frequently lead to heightened despair when one can no longer live in denial and one suddenly comes face to face the reality of aging. The good news for us is that our scripture today serves as an antidote to avoidance and denialism when it comes to the seasons of life. In many ways our scripture reflects a truth that Marie de Hennezel landed upon when she wrote a book on aging. After about two years of research on the subject, she found herself getting rather depressed because of the negative ways in which others wrote about the subject. She almost gave up her research altogether. What helped her continue were the words of a French priest named Abbe Pierre. Pierre was well regarded for his work with the poor and disenfranchised. He was fond of saying that we “must always keep both eyes open: one eye on the world’s suffering so that we can fight against it, and the other on its wondrous beauty so that we can give thanks for it.” Hennezel realized that she couldn’t persist in keeping both eyes focused on the bad experiences associated with the later years of life. She had to keep one eye on the joys that are experienced in those years as well.
If one thinks about it, our scripture this morning captures the essence of seeing the world with two eyes. One sees death and one sees new life. One sees sorrow and one sees laughter. One sees hate and one sees love. In a way, the scripture embodies the opposite of avoidance and denialism. We might think of avoidance and denialism as the attempt to close one eye. No, I would rather not see those gray hairs or that receding hairline. One of the masters at being able to metaphorically see with both eyes was the famous French impressionist Claude Monet. Monet was someone who certainly knew the side of reality that entailed hardship and rejection, disease and death, mourning and weeping. At the age of 16, his mother died. As a young adult, he went with the French army to Algeria where he contracted typhoid. At the age of 28, he attempted suicide due to financial stresses. At the age of 39, his first wife died. Even in the world of art, Monet did not initially experience the joys of fame and acclaim. Early on, his art was compared to leprosy. It was rejected by the gatekeepers of artistic recognition. In particular, Monet and his friends weren’t allowed to exhibit their works in the Salon de Paris. In response, they organized their own exhibit. One of the works that Monet submitted was entitled “Impression, Sunrise.” A critic picked up the term and derisively referred to the work of Monet and his associates as “Impressionism.” The rest, as they say, is history. Monet would go from being a derided outsider to being a renowned and financially successful artist.
It would be a mistake to say that Monet simply went from a despair-filled experience of the world to a joy-filled experience. Hardship and sorrow were still a part of his life. When Monet was barely in his 50s, his second wife died. To make matters worse, it was during this stage of life that Monet’s literally began having trouble with his eyes. He developed cataracts. In using the metaphors of our culture today, this is the point where one might assume that Monet was not only going over the hill but was rapidly speeding down the other side. With the literal deterioration of Monet’s eyes, one might assume that he was no longer able to see and experience the good of life with the same clarity and balance as before.
As it turns out, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Monet would paint well into his 80s, and it was during the latter years of his life that he would produce his greatest works. In particular, he is best known for his series of water-lily paintings. These include roughly 250 works, one of which you see on the cover of your bulletin for today. During the latter years of his life, Monet’s life did indeed change in ways that would substantially impact his art. For example, Monet suffered from rheumatism. Whereas he once traveled to paint landscapes in various locations, he now became content to paint the gardens of his own estate. As one biographer noted, this would become an advantage. Whereas lots of people could paint London and Venice, only Monet could paint the water lilies of his own pond.
Monet even managed his failing eyesight in the ways that would later make him famous. Impressionists are known for paintings that allow for a shifting play of light. This suited Monet who had to rely only upon that which he could see with eyes that had gone dim. Moreover, Monet no longer became concerned with the exactness and accuracy of lines but instead with painting in a way that created a sense of internal coherence. In this way, Monet’s work would prefigure abstractionism. Monet once instructed another famous artist to forget the precise nature of the objects she saw before her as she painted. Finally, with Monet’s water lilies, their enduring strength arises in part because of the luminous effect created by their blurred lines.
The poet Lisel Mueller captured the paradoxical strength of Monet’s vision when she wrote a poem about Monet’s refusal for four years to have his cataracts surgically addressed. The poem reads:
Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see.
Monet’s work at the end of his life in many ways has some religious qualities to it. His work on water lilies became a calling of sorts. It was a consuming passion, and his artistic vision had a purpose. Monet once described his goal of creating an entire drawing room dominated by the theme of water lilies. The theme would run along the walls and envelope all of its partitions in one unified presentation. He wanted to convey the impression “of an endless whole, a wave devoid of horizon and shore.” He continued, “Nerves exhausted by toil would have been able to relax there, following the placid example of those still waters, and all who lived in it would have been afforded a haven of peaceful contemplation.” One writer would later describe his vision as being a kind of chapel, a chapel that drew upon the sacred wonders he could see and appreciate in their full glory despite his rheumatism and despite being “more than half blind.”
In some ways, Monet accomplished in paint what the author of Ecclesiastes encouraged in writing. The author of Ecclesiastes names the mixed reality of life, but he goes on to say that against this backdrop we can still revel in the gifts of God. For as long as we live, we can still seek happiness and enjoyment. Monet had experienced the hardships of life, but he still managed to create for himself a garden of delight, a chapel of the sacred. Despite cataracts, he managed to keep both eyes open and see the wondrous beauty of the world. Amen.