Sound Disposition
Oil on canvas 3' x 5'
This painting is from the story of Thomas White, former president of the Voice of the Martyrs, an interdenominational organization that exists to aid Christians around that world who are being persecuted for their faith in Jesus Christ. I have illustrated a moment in Thomas White’s incarceration in Cuba, which began in 1979. His full story is related in the book, God's Missiles Over Cuba--the Tom White Story. I first came across an abbreviated form of the story in the book, Jesus Freaks, by D.C.Talk and the Voice of the Martyrs.
In the late 1970's, Tom, a California school teacher, spent his spare time flying a small plane over communist Cuba, dropping gospels of John and small evangelistic pamphlets from the plane as he flew. After 7 years of such adventurous trips, he was forced by mechanical problems to make an emergency landing on a Cuban highway. The date was May 27, 1979. Within moments of landing, Tom was arrested and rushed off to a high security prison where he was tried as a CIA spy (and found guilty on false charges) and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Tom was then thrown into solitary confinement in a refrigerated cement cell. There was no furniture in the cell, nothing on which Tom could rest or sit. The floor was too cold to sit on, the walls too cold to rest against. At first, he paced back and forth in the sleeveless tank top, cotton pants and socks they had issued him; but his pacing only brought him closer to the arctic blast pumping into his cell from a vent over his cell door at such a rate that it blew his hair straight back from his head. For 16 hours a day, he was forced to pass the time alone in this cell, let out only for times of intense and brutal interrogation from his captors before being locked up again in his refrigerator. Tom found only momentary relief from the chill by tucking his pant legs into his socks and pulling his arms inside of his tank top, then facing the wall, leaning in such a way that just the tip of his forehead came in contact with the cold cement. But the long hours in the freezing cold were undoing him; from this icy solitude, Tom kept crying out to God for help. Shivering from extensive exposure, Tom suddenly began singing. Here are his words, quoted here from the book, Jesus Freaks: "I don't know why I remembered to sing. But God's hand was guiding me and teaching me. As the levels of punishment grew more severe, so did the intensity of spiritual warfare. Satan tried harder to drag me down, but God gently raised me up...I started singing the great hymn, ' A Mighty Fortress is our God.' I sang, 'Jesus loves me', Bible choruses, and every Christian song I could remember...I whistled, sang, even imitated a trumpet blasting out praises to the Lord...I was no longer conscious of the cold, only of Jesus. "A guard opened the little steel window flap in the door and peered inside curiously. 'What are you doing?' he demanded. 'I am singing about Jesus!' 'Why?' 'Because I love Him!'" The guard slammed the flap and left. White continued singing. Soon after this pivotal occurrence, Tom was transferred to another cell (which was not refrigerated) and went on to serve 18 months of his sentence before pressure from the outside world, including a letter from Mother Teresa, brought about his release. Tom White's story is of one whose persecution did not end in death. |
I chose to illustrate in this painting the very powerful role that PRAISE played during Tom's frigid imprisonment. Praise was an effective and strategic weapon in Tom's hand. The Holy Spirit led him to make use of it to literally change the atmosphere in his prison cell.
I have painted Tom as if he had just climbed up on top of the (symbolic) chains that represent his imprisonment; he stands triumphantly, his head thrown back, blaring away praise to the Lord with all his heart on his imaginary trumpet, ". . . no longer conscious of the cold, only of Jesus." May we likewise find liberty as we make use of the weapon of praise in whatever prison–real or symbolic–that we find ourselves in.
I have painted Tom as if he had just climbed up on top of the (symbolic) chains that represent his imprisonment; he stands triumphantly, his head thrown back, blaring away praise to the Lord with all his heart on his imaginary trumpet, ". . . no longer conscious of the cold, only of Jesus." May we likewise find liberty as we make use of the weapon of praise in whatever prison–real or symbolic–that we find ourselves in.
Peculiar Graces: Sound Disposition. The title of this piece says it all: The peculiar grace given to this man in his physically painful solitary confinement, whilst also enduring the spiritual pressures of false accusations was the ability and the grace to ascend into heavenly places in Christ Jesus and therefore to keep his right mind. Tom literally wore his Ephesians 6 helmet of Salvation. Through giving himself to worshipping God, his ‘soul found rest in God alone—Tom’s ‘salvation came from Him”. Psalm 62:1