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Jesus Christ
He’s the Guy/God!
& My Best Friend
My Story
By Carl Vanderheyden
Easter, – 2024 A.D.
Once upon a time, my dear mom shared tales of God and Santa with me. I believed in both. Church introduced me to the God of the Bible, while a chemistry set from Santa fueled my earthly quest for truth and meaning. Were my mom and the scriptures correct? Were we created by God, or was the tale of climbing from a primordial ooze from my school teachers true? While no one has yet been able to conjure God from the laboratory, we are getting very, very close!
His handiwork has been evident everywhere I’ve looked, and all Creation stands as a Witness to its Creator.
If anyone happened upon one of my simple animal sculptures nestled in the woods, they’d surely recognize the hand of a creator behind it. If we also came upon a shiny new SUV, fully fueled, running, and ready to go in the forest, would we dare to assume it had no creator?
The so-called “simplest” life-giving, single-celled organisms are capable of performing up to 50,000 processes, including but not limited to: metabolism, reproduction, response to stimuli, homeostasis, communication, and genetic functions. Anything man’s ever made pales in comparison to even the “simplest” of God’s creations.
Despite our curiosity and scientific exploration, there has never been any evidence to support abiogenesis – life coming from non-life – nor will there be, it simply violates too many natural laws.
These are but a smattering of the lifetime of wonderings Santa’s chemistry set led me to conclude.
The “spiritual conclusions” I’ve come to that God exists, and that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of all mankind, are endless – and ongoing.
I’ve sought, I’ve found, and I’m on this, my Mission; To get me and as many of my brothers and sisters back home as possible, till I’m safely dead.
Jesus Christ
Architect of Us, and the Universe.
I have an insatiable appetite to understand the hows and whys of all creations, whether by God or man. I’ve spent my entire life ripping things apart to see how they were made and attempting, hopelessly at times, to put many back together.
During my 12 years of mandatory school incarceration (thank you, God, for providing girls), I took a variety of shop classes to understand how to properly construct things. Fortunately, a guidance counselor dragged me into her office in my junior year and asked me what I was going to do with my life, to which I had no answer.
She was just one of the many unending course-correcting Godsends on my journey. After her queries about what I liked to do, we concluded I liked wood shop, even though it was devoid of girls. So, we/she/I enrolled me in a one-year “Wood Techniques” program at the local Tech College after my senior year, which greatly altered whatever the heck would have happened to me had I not.
After graduating from the Wood Tech program, job hunting brought me to a local cabinet shop, where a very pretty lady at the front desk, the owner’s daughter, hired me on the spot (pretty sure it was just my resume). I pondered spending my life as a middle man for the man, didn’t like the thought, returned, gave the pretty lady a rose, told her thanks, but no thanks.
I would now spend the rest of my life my way, guided by God. I started a 30-year “Rent A Carpenter” business while simultaneously working, and then retiring after 27 years as a part-timer at United Parcel Service, where they’re currently “paying me not to come” till I die.
During this time, I met my dear wife Carol, who has since passed beyond the veil and is now enjoying paradise with beloved family members. Carol serves as a great example to others and me, having fulfilled the measure of her creation. Together, we were fortunate enough to successfully fulfill the command to multiply and replenish the earth, bringing into the world two wise and handsome boys, Steven and Jacob, as well as a truly gifted and gorgeous daughter, Emily.
Side Note: I humbly accepted the prestigious “Participation Award” for fathering said children. Carol and I currently have four incredibly beautiful granddaughters, whom I’m sure she’s watching over, if not actively helping guide, and protect.
Jesus Christ
Master Conductor and Orchestrator of our lives, if we allow Him
In 2004, I found myself in need of a frightening, fire-wire-spitting welder. No clue how to use one, but had a job that involved too many steel modifications for me to take to a professional, so I tackled the task myself. Welding wasn’t among the shop classes I took in high school—maybe if there had been girls! A good friend Howard S. (whom I share a co-patent with) showed me how to use said welder, and within five minutes, was convinced it was the coolest thing I ever saw. At friend Kevin S’s party, I asked another Kevin S. how I could make money with this fire spitter, and he introduced me to Miles A., yet another Godsend.
Ain’t nobody like Miles! There was absolutely no way to graph Miles’s imagination and his ability to conceive and create whatever his mind could conjure up. Graciously, he took me under his tutelage for a few days. He’d frequent steel scrapyards where farmers and others would clean up their properties of relics from bygone times. He’d grab interesting steel shapes of whatever caught his eye, explaining to me what they could possibly become. Then, he’d take them back to his studio and assemble the wildest things.
After spending a few days with this phenomenon, I had a “FEELING” (yes, guys do get those) that I was going to become a “World Famous Artist”! I went home and announced this epiphany to my wife, and, cocking her head, I could hear her thoughts, “He’s talking again”. She verbally exclaimed, “Yeah, right,” and went about her day. What was she to do with that precious tidbit? I had never taken an art class in my life, let alone created any art beyond a kindergarten finger painting and a few stick figures. BTW, I figured out years later that if you put a triangle over a stick figure boy, it becomes a girl. Speaking of girls, I “failed” 8th-grade art class because I swear the teacher had a thing for Dina, the prettiest 8th grader ever, in his class, who had a crush on me. Either he despised me for that, or something about me hardly ever showing up to class, blah, blah, blah. Or maybe because he had my older brother Glenn the year before, who was a total screw-off, so he hated me sight unseen. That teacher is still alive; I should ring him up.
How would I become this world-famous artist?
It certainly wasn’t an ego thing; I couldn’t make art to save my soul to have an ego thing about, still, I had this “Powerful Feeling.” That “Feeling” propelled me through the creations of the most hideous abominations ever assembled, and purported to pass for art that anyone’s ever seen, but somehow, people bought them all.
After a couple of years, my mentor, Miles, swung by my studio to see how I was doing. I had mastered making cattail plants – oh boy – he proceeded to kick me in the proverbial butt, telling me I needed to move past these infantile creations. That meant creating some substantial three-dimensional something, which scared the living daylights out of me to venture from the comfort zone of mediocrity! It took a while, but I mustered the courage to sift through my collected junkyard cast-offs and make something hopefully recognizable (see my “first thing” pic below). My younger brother Todd actually bought this first piece for $100! A number of years later, I happened to be at Todd’s while he was cleaning up his backyard, and he said, “Here, take this piece of junk back!” Thanks, Todd—I have my first piece of historic junk back.
Jesus
Our Co-Pilot
Don’t leave home without Him
Fast forward a couple of decades; and am excited to say I have art displayed in universities, museums, numerous city acquisitions, and public and private collections scattered all over the USA – soon to be, the world.
After my dear wife Carol passed away in 2018, I pondered my little world that included an echoing, 1 occupant house. Sure, I was one of the top-selling artists in the finest gallery in the midwest, I had friends and family close by, but how often do I even see them? My children and grand-babies were living 1500 miles away, so what’s a dad to do? Dads never stop being dads, so I gave most everything away, filled a couple semi trailers with tools, art and steel, prepped the conversion van to live out of, turned the house keys over to its new owner, and with a smile on my face, drove west to live in the high mountain desert, and “Live in a van down by the river,” (Chris Farley, Matt Foley – SNL fan?).
With a pair of moose in tow in an open trailer, I headed over America’s highways over the 4th of July week (see pic below) where people risked their lives taking videos and photos at 80 mph. I checked into a motel at midnight somewhere in the middle of Iowa, where a guy who appeared to be a permanent motel resident, totally buzzed on some local fare, gazed wearily at the moose under defused lamplight, and exclaimed, “Are those real?” I told him not to get too close; “They’re Vicious!”
Don’t let this next story get around. I had previously stalked and found one of Harrison Ford’s homes in the west. Yes, Mr. Indiana Jones! I felt he needed a piece of my art. I won’t tell you where I found him, but I will say I figured it out by inquiring at the finest liquor store in the closest town where he lived, and they all but drew me a map. I pulled up to his place on the 4th of July. He wasn’t home yet, but his family was all there. I talked to one of his ranch hands and she asked me if I was there for the fireworks. I told her I thought Harry should see, and own some of my works; she told me “He doesn’t take too kindly to strangers,” so I hit the road before feeling Indiana’s whip!
When I arrived near Emily (she had my 2 of my grand-babies, so I’m hanging near them) “The van down by the river thing” got a little claustrophobic, so I got a roomier rig. I spent a year and a half attempting to reestablish my little art world to no avail, so I gave up. I learned a principle that if something’s not working out, stop, and wait upon the Lord. That proved true. Soon after, Ron D., a friend and client, introduced me to a gallery owner in historic downtown Park City, Utah. They loved my work, but, no studio, no art. This visit was designed by God! My purpose was to experience Ashley Collins’ art! The Gallery represented her and I was spellbound by her style! With the mind racing, I envisioned how I could recreate what she was doing, somehow making it mine, and make my splash in the world! Only a few minor drawbacks. She’s the top female artist in the world, has spent the last 30 years making a name for herself, could paint amazing horses, and I could still only make stick-girls on a good day.
But that meant nothing! I had just “received” another one of those “Feeling Things” from above, by her awe-inspiring works, and was “On-Fire” to move forward again!
Over the coming months, ideas would distill down from the heavens on how I could morph what Ashley was doing, and make amazing works of my own. There’s a term in the art world called “Benevolent Theft”. This is where artists borrow, or get inspiration from others, to fuel their own imaginative works. She was using glued down antique book pages as the background to her large 6′ by 6′ wood canvases, then painting a beautiful sketched/painted horse along with found objects, sayings, and splatterings of paint here and there, so as not to be too perfect, and voila, a masterpiece! My vision would be to sculpt a 3-D horse (something I can do) on the canvas, then surround my horse with “Perfectly Imperfect” children’s renditions of Jesus’ horse, creating a collaborative masterpiece!
With God along for the ride, the “World Famous Artist” thing will happen. You, I, and our precious children will do our part, and God will take His/yours, and our message through art, to the world, in preparation for the second coming of its Creator, our God, Jesus Christ!
My vision is to provide the best possible role model – Jesus Christ – to the world’s children in what may be the darkest, most wicked time in history.
The world needs a little more – no, a lot more Jesus!
Absolutely nothing is more important than finding out who Jesus Christ is and following His commandments/laws.
These are not mere suggestions; they’re laws that govern a spectacular universe created for us by our loving Savior, that we may progress, and have joy.
The End. Yet just the Beginning.
