The best way to know God is to love many things.

Host: The afternoon light was soft and golden, pouring through the wide windows of a small countryside studio. Dust motes floated in the beams like slow, wandering stars. The smell of oil paint, turpentine, and wood filled the air — that particular perfume of creation and patience.

Outside, the fields stretched endlessly — muted green and yellow, the color of stillness. In the distance, a church bell rang once, carried gently by the wind.

Jack stood before a canvas, brush in hand, but unmoving. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his hands stained with color — blue smudges on the veins, streaks of ochre across his knuckles. He stared at the canvas as though it were a mirror he was afraid to look into.

Jeeny sat by the open window, legs crossed, sketchbook in her lap. The light caught her hair, turning it amber around the edges. She wasn’t drawing. Just watching him — the kind of gaze that sees both the surface and the storm beneath it.

Jeeny: “You’ve been standing there for twenty minutes, Jack.”

Jack: “Time’s different when you’re trying to paint something honest.”

Jeeny: “Honest doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Jack: (softly) “Tell that to the ghosts in the paint.”

Host: A pause, filled with the faint buzz of a fly and the sighing wind outside. Then Jeeny smiled, almost to herself.

Jeeny: “Vincent van Gogh once said, ‘The best way to know God is to love many things.’”

Jack: “I wonder if he believed that… or if he was just trying to forgive himself.”

Jeeny: “Maybe both.”

Jack: “He loved too much, you know. Every brushstroke — obsession. Every color — confession. It’s no wonder he burned out. You can’t love that many things without catching fire.”

Jeeny: “And yet, maybe that’s what holiness is — catching fire without burning others.”

Host: Jack turned slightly, the sunlight striking his face, illuminating the fatigue there — not of the body, but of a soul that had been carrying too many unfinished questions.

Jack: “You talk about love like it’s a virtue. But it’s chaos, Jeeny. Every time I’ve loved — a person, a dream, even a place — it’s taken something from me.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because you love like a thief. Always afraid it won’t last, so you hold too tightly.”

Jack: (bitter laugh) “And you? You think love gives without taking?”

Jeeny: “Of course it takes. But it leaves more than it steals. It’s an exchange, not a robbery.”

Host: She stood, walking toward the table covered in paints and half-finished sketches. Her fingers brushed the edge of a palette — green, gold, crimson, all mixed and dried.

Jeeny: “Van Gogh didn’t just love people. He loved wheat fields, stars, boots, sunflowers, chairs. He loved the way light fell on loneliness. That’s what he meant — to know God, you have to see the sacred in everything.”

Jack: “And what if you can’t?”

Jeeny: “Then you start by trying.”

Host: The light shifted — softer now, filtered through slow-moving clouds. The air smelled faintly of rain. Somewhere outside, a crow called — harsh but not unkind.

Jack: “You know, I used to think faith was certainty — believing in something bigger than you. Now I think it’s the opposite. It’s living without proof.”

Jeeny: “And yet here you are, trying to make meaning with color.”

Jack: “Maybe I’m just pretending.”

Jeeny: “Pretending is just another word for hoping.”

Host: Jeeny leaned closer, her voice quiet but edged with warmth.

Jeeny: “You say you can’t see God, Jack. But you see beauty in the cracks of walls. You stop to watch how light changes when it hits rainwater. You love without realizing it — in small, ordinary ways. Maybe that’s how God hides.”

Jack: (looking at her) “In imperfection?”

Jeeny: “In affection.”

Host: A brief silence followed, delicate as the air before a confession. Jack set down his brush. His eyes softened.

Jack: “You really think love’s the way to find Him?”

Jeeny: “I think love’s the way to find anything worth finding.”

Jack: “Even when it hurts?”

Jeeny: “Especially when it hurts.”

Host: The rain began, light at first — a soft percussion against the window. The smell of wet soil drifted inside, merging with the scent of paint. Jack turned back to the canvas, dipped his brush into blue — not the bright blue of the sky, but the deep, aching blue of twilight.

Jack: “You know, I used to think painting was about control — capturing something before it fades. Now I think it’s about surrender.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. You don’t paint to own beauty. You paint to honor it.”

Jack: “But it never feels enough.”

Jeeny: “It’s not supposed to. That’s how love teaches humility.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, streaking the window with rivulets. Jeeny’s sketchbook lay open on the table, blank — but her gaze was alive. She watched Jack dip his brush again, then again, each motion gentler, more honest.

Jeeny: “What are you painting?”

Jack: “The light before the rain. The moment before the world exhales.”

Jeeny: “Why that?”

Jack: “Because it’s fleeting. And maybe the only way to love something fleeting is to paint it.”

Host: She smiled faintly — that small, sad smile of someone who understood what it meant to love things that wouldn’t stay.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… I think Van Gogh was right. Maybe God isn’t in the church, or in scripture, or even in peace. Maybe He’s in the act of loving — a person, a moment, a color — even when it breaks you.”

Jack: “Then maybe breaking is sacred, too.”

Host: The light dimmed further. The rain softened, then stopped. The studio was wrapped in that peculiar stillness that follows weather — a kind of reverent hush.

Jack stepped back from the canvas. On it was nothing extraordinary: just a faint sky, a suggestion of wheat, a trace of horizon. But there was something in it — something alive, trembling, unfinished — like faith itself.

He looked at Jeeny.

Jack: “You think He sees all this?”

Jeeny: “I think He is all this.”

Jack: “And us?”

Jeeny: “We’re His brushstrokes.”

Host: Jack laughed softly, but there was wonder in it — a rare sound. He walked to the window, looked out at the freshly washed world — the soil dark, the leaves glistening, the air tasting new.

Jack: “You know… maybe that’s what it means to love many things. To see the divine not above us, but between us.”

Jeeny: “And within us.”

Host: The sun returned, timid at first, then brighter — spilling gold across the floorboards, the paints, the quiet faces of two people who’d forgotten to be lost.

Jeeny picked up her sketchbook, finally drawing — a quick outline of the window, the light, and the faint smile on Jack’s face.

Jack: “What are you drawing?”

Jeeny: “You, seeing God.”

Jack: (laughs softly) “And what does that look like?”

Jeeny: “Like a man who’s finally learned to love the world enough to stop fixing it.”

Host: The room filled again with color — sunlight, laughter, the scent of rain. Outside, the fields glowed alive, as if painted by unseen hands.

Because as Van Gogh said — and as Jack and Jeeny finally understood —

To know God is not to look upward, but outward.
To love many things — broken, fleeting, human —
is to realize that divinity was never distant at all.