more than anything, willem wanted to be an evangelist. he was only 25, but already he'd been an art dealer, language teacher, bookseller and unsuccessful in love. but more than all the paintings and all the words and all the books and all the women, willem wanted to devote himself to his fellow man and the word of God.
it was this passion that brought young willem, in the spring of 1879, to the coal mines of southern belgium. perhaps it was the young minister's total selflessness that first captured the respect of the miners in that tiny community. while there, a mine disaster occured and scores of the villagers were injured. no one fought harder to save them than willem. day and night, he nursed the wounded, fed the hungry, clothed the poor. he even scraped the slag heaps to give his people fuel.
after the rubble was cleared, the dead buried and the sick made well, the townspeople turned to the dutchman who had healed their physical wounds and adopted him as their spiritual leader. every sunday they overflowed his services to hear this unassuming man preach the literal word of God.
and then lightning struck. a visiting church official discovered willem living in a simple hut, dressed in an old soldier's coat and trousers made of sacking. when he asked willem what he had done with his salary, willem answered simply that he'd given it to the miners. the church official told him that he looked more miserable than the people he taught. why had he given everything away? willem returned his question, "wasn't this what Christ had intended for his disciples?" the church official argued, "reading the scriptures is one thing, but to literally interpret them in such a way that you would give away your own wages is not right." he went on to say that the conventions willem had destroyed would take years to rebuild. and willem was dismissed from his service to the church that very day.
willem was devastated. the career that had meant everything to him was suddenly gone. what followed were weeks of despair. then one afternoon, willem noticed an old miner. he was bending beneath the enormous weight of a full sack of coal. and in that instant, willem again felt the desperation of these people and knew that it would always be his own. fumbling through his pockets, the dutchman pulled out a tattered envelope and then a pencil and began to sketch the weary figure that had moved him so. that first drawing was a crude one, but he tried over and over again.
beginning that day, willem was to capture for the world the torment, triumph and dignity of the people he loved. if willem had failed as a minister, there was now a new passion, a new purpose. and the people he was not allowed to teach, he was able to reach through art. in the process he immortalized them and they him. for the end of willem's career as a clergyman motivated a ministry more monumental than he had ever dreamed. because the preacher who wasn't to be, became the artist the world would know as vincent van gogh.
