“Search Me Oh God And Know My Heart”: Art by an LGW retreatant
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). The words of this psalm struck me as I was in the midst of the Life-Giving Wounds retreat for adult children of divorce, during a lengthy engagement half a world apart from my future wife, as well as the tumultuous seas of the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 election. One thing I knew for sure: I had just found the title of my new painting.
Every time I begin a new painting, they always start the same. I have a couple of visions of what I want to do, but they are vague. The vision captures a general essence, but the formation of that essence has competing forms in my imagination. It was the same with this piece, except that I knew that I wanted Jesus to be a part of it. I wanted God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to come into my life more deeply, and I wanted this painting to be a physical manifestation of that presence. So I prayed. I asked the Holy Spirit to guide me. Immediately after praying, I started painting, and the first thing I painted was the Holy Spirit. A fire in the sky lighting the way for my imagination and my brushes. With the Holy Spirit as my light, I continued.
[Editor’s note: you can view Joe’s painting here as he describes it below.]
Some of the figures in the painting began to appear immediately, in extremely delicate forms. They are providential brush strokes that call out to be identified in their true and elevated form. Mary, the woman directly under Jesus on the top right, appeared quickly. The rest of the figures became apparent as the painting progressed, and once I found them I developed them further.
Here is a breakdown of this painting’s narrative as I see it. Of course, like all art, it is free to be interpreted as you wish. But some themes are so structurally ingrained that they would be impossible to ignore or alter in any variety of interpretation.
At the bottom of the painting is Hell. There, on the bottom right, you will find Satan who is painted in red. On his left are two distorted ghost-like faces. The middle of the painting represents earth. There, we find a married couple lovingly adoring each other as they are about to kiss! God’s light shines down on them, blessing them. Above the married couple is a young man entangled in God’s beard. God’s lips are his eyes, which are focused on Jesus. That is, in part, to show that the word of God is focused on Christ as part of the mystery of the Word made flesh. Also, there is a relationship suggested by the triangular formation of this figure with the married couple. I imagine this figure hidden in God’s beard could represent the adolescent future son of the married couple, who has not yet been conceived but who is known by God. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). Together in their triangular composition they may also represent the Holy Family.
Below the married couple is a darkened face of a woman. This darkness represents
unwillingness to receive God’s grace, which sets her in closer relationship to darkness itself. This is who I was for many years. As that darkened soul, I still believed in God, but I thought that he hated me along with many other malcontents. There is a dominant compositional theme in the drama of this painting that as souls progress upward they become more definite, structured, and filled with light. As they progress downward, they become ill-defined, distorted and dark. But Mary is there with them. Her face represents the body of Christ in the Church, and her hair represents the healing waters flowing down from Christ. These waters are even reaching down to the pit of Hell to pull out those poor souls who might yet accept God’s love. On the lower right of Mary is a youthful face; she has the look of one who has found peace after shedding tears of renewal, as the healing waters wash over her.
(In case of any theological issues, I’d like to note that I’m not suggesting that people may be rescued from eternal Hell, but that they may be rescued from earthly forms of Hell, and that this may be done through the intercession of Our Lady. That being said, the Hell depicted in this painting may hold dual representation as an earthly Hell as well as the eternal one.)
Finally, there’s heaven at the top. There we have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit between them as a result of their love. Jesus’ mouth is open, his pained facial expression represents his suffering, and his eyes are fixed upward, symbolizing his focus on the Father. Although it’s not made obvious in the painting, I see all that is unfolding below Christ as if it were contained in his body. As our highly volatile and chaotic as well as beautiful earthly narratives play out, Jesus holds all of it in his body. The light from the Trinity shines down on all of us, calling us to our true identities and freeing us from all that is dark.
Now that I have described the different aspects of this piece, I hope that the drama unfolding is clear. It is the battle between Heaven and Hell, good and evil, light and dark. And we are in the middle of it. But we have great heroes pulling us toward the light!
I completed this painting about a week before our final session of the Life Giving Wounds retreat for adult children of divorce, and it goes without question that the retreat influenced my brushes in this piece and will continue to exercise influence on future paintings. The retreat helped me in such deeply spiritual ways that are hard to describe. Even though I already knew how common divorce is, the group sessions made it concretely evident that others struggle, and they struggle with their identity in Christ as I have and still do to different degrees. But the retreat helped me forgive my parents more fully and understand them in a context outside of their relationship to me as parents. It also helped me to dive more deeply into that deep darkness and loneliness that I felt from my childhood and throughout the entirety of my 20s.
Much of my life was based on a thought that was planted in my mind after my parents divorced and then took root and grew from there. The simple breakdown is as such: I felt abandoned, unwanted, and that my existence was accidental at best. I blamed God. Not just God, but Jesus too. And not just for my suffering but for all suffering. I thought, “How dare God threaten me with eternal Hell? Isn’t earth Hell enough?” When I talked to God, I only had this to say: “Who put the tree of knowledge in the garden? Who made it bear fruit to eat? And who let the snake in to tempt Eve? And who created that snake in the first place? You did. Not me, you.”
The thing is, I actually didn’t know how much of that anger toward God came from my parents’ divorce. I spent my 20s searching for answers besides God, but all answers eventually pointed back to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It was after reading books and listening to lectures by Dr. Jordan Peterson that the truth of the Catholic Church became solidified and immovable in my conscious. But Dr. Peterson did not heal me of the wound caused by my parent’s divorce. No offence to him; he is obviously a brilliant psychologist and I’m a big fan! However, he did point out the wound and its seriousness.
As I started attending regular Mass, I began to heal. The results were immediate. Then I met my fiancée and my healing went deeper. Thank God for her! She is such a crucial part of God’s grace in my life! Then I did an Unbound healing retreat and went deeper. Finally, I did this Life-Giving Wounds retreat and went even deeper. Although I am sure that I have more healing to do and that there are depths of wounds yet to be uncovered, there is one thing I know for sure: this retreat heightened my trust in God the Father in a new way. I can’t explain it fully, but as the retreat progressed, I felt more touched by God. In my prayers, but especially during Mass or just praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, it’s as if a gentle hand is reaching into my heart and slowly and gently sending warmth throughout my body and soul. The worries that I’ve had are still there as concerns, but they’re not as nightmarish or as threatening as they were before. I trust God the Father to guide me, my fiancée, my family, and all of us across the stormy seas we sail.
This painting is titled, “Search Me Oh God and Know My Heart.” It is 24” x 36” acrylic and gold enamel on canvas. For all who see this painting, I hope that it fills you with a sense of hope. I pray that you have the courage to lay down your life before God so that he can raise you up and set you free. I pray that you will be courageous and patient in letting go of all those things that keep you from forgiving those who need your forgiveness, so that God can more deeply enter your life and theirs. I hope that you are given a sense of God’s strength, power, and wisdom, so that his ability to be a Father to each one of us will be impossible to doubt. I hope that those who look at this painting will feel a deep sense of the power, might, and eternal love of God the Father and our Heavenly family and home that he is calling us to.
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Joe McHale is a visual artist based out of Kearney, Nebraska. He graduated from the UNK College of Fine Arts and Humanities in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art. He has also taken classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, studied at Creighton University, and has found inspiration and education from his experiences in New York, Philadelphia, New Mexico, and Paris.
McHale has shown his work in many shows including venues such as PAFA; UNK’s Fine Walker Art Gallery; the Johnson Lake Festival of Arts; the Tru Café Gallery; the Cambridge Museum; The Red Path in Seward, NE; The Noyes Gallery in Lincoln, NE; 1340Art International Art Magazine based in the Netherlands; the Prairie Arts Center in North Platte, NE; the Moon Cafe Gallery in Sacramento, CA; the Fred Simmon Gallery in Omaha, NE; and the Center for Contemporary Arts in Abilene, TX.
You can find Joe McHale’s art on Facebook, Instagram, and Art Pal.