VISUAL MEDITATION - "Dying Sorrow and the Paradox of Mortality"

A Reflection for Lent and Ramadan inspired by the Art of Kahlil Gibran and Daniel Bonnell

By Paul G. Chandler - February 18, 2026:

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

Kahlil Gibran

L to R:

Kahlil Gibran, The Triangle, 1918, Wash drawing

Daniel Bonnell, Two Thieves #11, 2022, Mixed media on grocery bag paper

I have spent most of my life as a Christian minority in a Muslim majority context. So, it warms my heart that for the first time in over 30 years, the Christian season of Lent and the Islamic season of Ramadan not only overlap, but begin at the same time, February 17-18. Both seasons are intentionally focused on befriending our mortality and acknowledging our pain and the world’s pain. Many Christians begin the season of Lent with ashes, a ritual that recalls the words in Genesis, “. . . for dust you are, and to dust you will return" (3:19). And my Muslim sisters and brothers this season are reminded of the verse in the Qur’an that says, “Every soul will taste death. . .” (3:185).

Fasting is one of the spiritual disciplines that both faiths share during this season, a daily reminder of our human limitations, vulnerability and the inevitability of death, with the intention of engendering a humility that heightens spiritual awareness and enables us to enter a deeper dimension of existence.

At this time of year, I am reminded of two moving drawings by Kahlil Gibran, the early 20th century Lebanese born poet-artist, often most known for his bestselling book of spiritual prose poetry titled The Prophet. Gibran was born in 1883 in Lebanon into a Maronite Catholic family. As a young boy he immigrated with his family to America, to the city of Boston. His own spiritual journey led him to dig deeply into his own spiritual tradition to find its core essence. In so doing, he found himself discovering anew the figure of Jesus, leading him to embody a broader spirituality than the Christian faith of his childhood. Early on he wrote to a friend; “My greatest hope now is to be able to paint the life of Jesus as no one did before. My art can find no better resting place than the personality of Jesus. . . all my life the wonder of him has grown on me.”

For most of Gibran’s adult life, he worked on a book titled Jesus the Son of Man. This creative masterwork was published just three years before his death. He seeks to return Jesus back to his Middle Eastern origins and his book presents a mesmerizing picture of the essence of Jesus. It was the longest book he wrote, and some see it as a “fifth gospel” of sorts. It is evident that he came to see the person of Jesus as far beyond Christianity, and instead as a Universal Sage for all humanity. Gibran wrote; “His life is the symbol of Humanity. He shall always be the supreme figure of all ages.” He also viewed Jesus to be the greatest of all artists and poets, referring to him as “The Master Poet…who makes poets of us all.” 

L to R:

Kahlil Gibran, Jesus the Son of Man, 1928

Kahlil Gibran, Twenty Drawings, 1919

While the last book published before Gibran’s death was about Jesus, one of his first books in English, many years earlier, was a collection of his drawings published in 1919 as Twenty Drawings. In the book he included two of his works related to Jesus titled Crucified and The Triangle. Each are wash drawings that portray two human figures holding onto a third figure. They are taken from the traditional image of Jesus on a cross positioned between two thieves. Yet, in these works, Gibran places no religious elements, such as the cross, blood, halo, stigmata or nails.

L to R:

Kahlil Gibran, Crucified, 1918, Wash drawing / Kahlil Gibran, The Triangle, 1918, Wash drawing

While these drawings evoke the suffering that Jesus underwent, they also communicate the sublime, for in Gibran’s opinion, the crucifixion was also the highest expression of Jesus’s greatness, portraying a juxtaposition of suffering and joy. Of Jesus, Gibran wrote; “He was a man of joy; and it was upon the path of joy that He met the sorrows of all men. And it was from the high roofs of His sorrows that He beheld the joy of all men.” Elsewhere, about Jesus, he writes, “For in one soul are contained the hopes and feelings of all Mankind.”

Just as Gibran attempted to do in these two drawings, he infused in his writing his belief that life’s experiences of joy and sorrow are complementary. This paradox of our mortality permeated his worldview. In the face of his own personal suffering, he allowed himself to feel deeply. In that same well of depth, he also found its counterpart, the beauty of joy and new life. Throughout his life, Gibran addressed the themes of joy and sorrow and brought real comfort to his readers with his words: “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” In his most famous work, he writes, "Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." 

In a tribute to Gibran after this death, one of his close friends wrote:

“Gibran was of those souls that experienced moments of utter clarity in which Truth delights to be mirrored. In that was Gibran’s glory. . . . Whoever knows not Gibran’s sorrows cannot know his joys. And whoever knows not his joys cannot know the power that made it possible for him to put his joys and sorrows in words that ring with melody, and in colors that stand out as living thoughts and longings, and lines that are ladders between the animal in the human heart and the God enthroned within that heart. . . . In polishing the mirror of his soul he polishes the mirrors of our souls.”

I had the privilege of curating an exhibition titled Dying Sorrow featuring the noted sacred contemporary artist, Daniel Bonnell, who was inspired by these two drawings by Gibran. Bonnell lives in Savannah, Georgia, and studied under some of the most renowned artists of the 2Oth century, including Ansel Adams, Edward Ross, and Milton Glaser. Like Gibran, Bonnell is a profoundly spiritual person, and sees each artwork as an act of devotion; “All artists are only midwives that enable creativity to emerge from the Eternal.”

Over the last fifteen years, Bonnell started to paint on grocery bag paper, expressing his belief that “True beauty is received on a stage of humility: Jesus born in a cave, the cross revealing power in weakness - even sacred paintings on a grocery bag.” Recurring themes in Bonnell’s work movingly express the paradoxical relationship between suffering and joy, death and new life.

For this exhibition, Bonnell created 15 works on grocery bag paper as visual reflections on Gibran’s two unorthodox portrayals of Jesus’ on the cross. Bonnell’s art process for these works was highly semiotic. After painting and drawing the figures on common grocery bag paper, once dry, he balled the paper up (as if he was going to throw it away), then soaked it in water. When he unraveled it, he found it had a new texture and color shift that brought it to life in a new way. He then ironed some of the wrinkles out. Lastly, he applied olive oil and/or frankincense to the works, and many of them retain the smell of the oils. He did not sign the works, but rather only put a discrete stamp of the artist in the corner. As a result, each piece is transformed into a greater form of beauty, highlighting his thesis of high art produced on a stage of humility. The symbolism is profound: creation, cleansing, death, the heat of transformation, new life.

Daniel Bonnell, Two Thieves (1-15), 2022

Mixed media on grocery bag paper, 11” x 14”

I titled the exhibition Dying Sorrow, taking lines from a Medieval Latin poem ascribed to Bernard de Clairvaux (1090 - 1153), used in a 17th century hymn titled “O Sacred Head Now Wounded.”    

What language shall I borrow

to thank thee, dearest Friend,

for this, thy dying sorrow,

thy pity without end?

There is an intended word play in the title, “Dying Sorrow.” While the exhibition reminds us of our mortality and the profound sorrow that is often experienced in life, it also seeks to communicate that ultimate sorrow dies because of new life promised to us by the Divine Artist. Thus, “Dying Sorrow” can be interpreted two ways.

During these seasons of Lent and Ramadan where we are reminded of our mortality, life’s sorrows and the world’s pain, we are also reminded that these seasons of humility are not ends in themselves. In both traditions they culminate with celebrations of new life and joy - Easter and Eid al-Fitr. That is the beautiful paradox of our mortality.

This is why the exhibition Dying Sorrow ends with a work by Daniel Bonnell titled “First Moments of New Life.” I leave the last words to Bonnell as he reflects on his works inspired by Gibran’s two drawings:

“To take pause this [season] and view the cross more deeply enables us to be opened up to a greater depth of love that has no bottom. If we really see correctly. . . we are embraced on both sides. At the very center of the scene is the completed symbol of love . . .for you and me, as well as all of humanity.”

Daniel Bonnell, First Moment of New Life, 2022, Mixed media on grocery bag paper,14” x 17”

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To learn more about the exhibition DYING SORROW and the artist Daniel Bonnell, visit:

oncaravan.org/dyingsorrow