Wednesday, January 16, 2019

“You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.”  (1 Peter 3:4, New Living Translation)

                Ron Wilson was a gentle and quiet spirit. But after his battle with cancer for the last two years we said our goodbyes and paid him tribute this past Saturday. Ron was one of our very best of friends, along with his wife Nola. We met when Nola came to be our new Music Director at Murray St. Baptist Church but Ron was also a much-gifted musician among his many talents.

                Ron’s other stellar gift was as an artist.  He actually studied under A.Y. Jackson when Ron was quite young. Although Ron had his own unique style of painting, sometimes I can see the influence of Canada’s Group of Seven having a slight influence in his own work. A pine tree or a dune or a cloud would have just a hint of their style.

                Although many of his paintings are about nature, there were people, dogs, barns and the like also. Our favourites though have always been his out-of-doors’ canvases – canoes sitting on shorelines, big Muskoka chairs sitting on wood decks next to the water, shorelines with waves or skies with moving clouds or craggy rocks with majestic pines. He could also draw whimsical caricatures of people, dogs and other scenarios.

                Personally, I think that Ron could have been a renowned Canadian artist, but he was always modest, humble and not one to seek fame and fortune. So we, his family and close friends, get to enjoy the beauty and grandeur of his work.

                I said in tribute to him at the Celebration Service that his art says a lot about the heart, mind and soul of the person who he was in life. He could see beauty in the world all around him. It was one of the ways he expressed his deep Christian faith. His ability to see the wonder of God’s Creation fed his spirit which in turn became the creative catalyst for putting brush to canvas and letting us all in on the joy and abundance of God’s creativity in the world around us.          

                Ron’s artistry often evokes a spirituality. I have one of his paintings sitting just above my desk where I am working.  Ron’s use of soft water colours gives the feel of an early morning mist rising off a lake as I imagine myself sitting in the Muskoka chair on the dock by the calm water. It gives me a sense of peace and serenity, calmness and quietness: “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.” (Psalm 23: 2 -3a)

                It has become to easy to see the ugly in the world around us. We would like to avert our eyes from looking at the damage and chaos of life. We would like to be able to stop the world and get off, some days.

                But Ron has reminded me to never stop looking for the beauty, the wonder, the splendour, the miracle of the world we live in. It rises above the mean and cruel, the tragic and the waste, the pain and the sorrow.  Instead God’s Creation – after all its genesis, too,  overcame  chaos and nothingness and spread into Eden itself – is  a bounteous gift which  is granted to us to enjoy.

                “For the beauty of the earth; for the glory of the skies,

                For the love which from our birth, Over and around us lies,

                Lord of all to Thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise.” (Pierpont)

Dale