amo

Yesterday, Orchids was featured in the Painters in Modern Times group at RedBubble. I am grateful for the hosts’ support and encouragement!

I’m reading what is probably the best book I’ll read this year, In the Likeness of God, by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey (though I haven’t finished the book or the year yet).

I’m beginning to think one of the best gifts God gave us (to learn with, anyway) is analogy. Earlier this year, I read Mind Of The Maker, by Dorothy Sayers and learned a lot about God as Creator by looking at human creators/artists. In The Likeness of God is about the human body and what we can learn about the One who created it and also the Body of Christ, the Church.

I’ve never felt I was particularly talented at finding/creating analogies myself, but perhaps it is something I should pursue. I seem to learn best from them. Jesus’ parables are analogies. I wonder how one goes about learning how to work with analogies?

(Actually, I have a short story I tried to write once that was an analogy, but I never finished it. I have more ideas than I have self discipline, and the light bulb that goes on over my head is sometimes a strobe light.)

In any event, I find myself wanting to quote extensively from this book, but I try not to quote too much from any one book here. Right now, I’m only on page 175 (of 552, though it’s not difficult reading), and I’ve got 3 fantastic passages I’d love to share! Since I really should just pick one, I guess I’ll go with the fun simile (i.e., analogy, if you don’t split hairs):

I can understand the complex process of keratin producing rigid fingernails and horses’ hooves. But no amount of training will lessen my astonishment as I watch a single stalk of keratin push its way out of a follicle, grow erect and proud and shockingly unfurl as a peacock feather. What was chemistry becomes beauty. It is as if a brilliant Appalachian quilt springs from a rock, as if a desert suddenly births a gang of cavorting porpoises.

“Let’s do a little cabinectomy here.”

“Maybe in our world there lives a happy little tree over there.”

“Shwooop. Hehe. You have to make those little noises, or it just doesn’t work.”

“That’s a crooked tree. We’ll send him to Washington.”

“The only thing worse than yellow snow is green snow.”

“Water’s like me. It’s laaazy… Boy, it always looks for the easiest way to do things.”

“We don’t make mistakes, we just have happy accidents.”

“We want happy paintings. Happy paintings. If you want sad things, watch the news.”

These two quotations are really one, but I stopped and thought about the first part for a while before I read on to see what followed, so I’m going to break up what is really one paragraph in a book:

“When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject.”

Flowers in a Green Vase
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

“But then I shall require a still gayer palette than I get here below. I expect orange and vermilion will be the darkest, dullest colors upon it, and beyond them there will be a whole range of wonderful new colours which will delight the celestial eye.”

– from Painting as a Pastime by Winston S. Churchill

(While I was looking for an appropriate photo of one of his paintings, I came across this story, which I found rather interesting.)

“Let your light shine before men” (Matt. 5:16). All this groveling and self-deprecation done by Christians is often just shame masquerading as humility. Shame says, “I’m nothing to look at. I’m not capable of goodness.” Humility says, “I bear a glory for sure, but it is a reflected glory. A grace given to me.”

From Waking the Dead: The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive
by John Eldredge

Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story of the Tin Woodman, and now they knew why he was so anxious to get a new heart.

“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.”

“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodman; “for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”

– L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Tin Ear
1. an insensitivity to melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic variety in music.

– Dictionary.com

She too was steadfast. That touched the soldier so deeply that he would have cried tin tears, only soldiers never cry.

– Hans Christian Anderson, The Steadfast Tin Soldier

A tin cry is the characteristic sound heard when a bar of tin is bent. Variously described as a “screaming” or “crackling” sound, the effect is caused by the shearing of crystals in the metal. The sound is not particularly loud, despite terms like “crying” and “screaming”.

– Wikipedia

I find it interesting that tin cries when you bend it. Tin, which knows no love or pain, screams. Like maybe it knows it doesn’t have a heart, like someone with a “tin ear” knows they’re missing something, even if they’re not quite sure what.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” — Romans 8:22 (NIV)

Saturday night, I discovered a new computer game, which I’ve really been enjoying. However, I wouldn’t have even been looking for a game at all if I hadn’t been so worn out.

(Actually, I discovered two games, but one was over quickly. If you’ve got 15 minutes or so and like this web site, you might like this little locked room game that is just cute and artsy and pink and full of animals and . . . well, cute.)

I first started thinking about tin because I’m reading Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, and he refers to the Tin Woodman. Lord willing, I’ll wake up a little more this week. With apologies to Fezzik, I must say I’ve been mostly dead for days.

We have a new (to us) television and entertainment center, courtesy of my ever-generous sister-in-law. Thanks, E! It’s really amazing how much difference a few inches in screen size makes, and while I can’t complain about the prior furniture (also hand-me-downs from the in-laws), this set-up has much better storage and really makes the room look more complete and less “college student” in decor. Considering how long it’s been since I’ve been in college, perhaps it’s time to move away from that decorating style, though I can’t imagine ever really making decor a priority. It’s kind of funny how much I like to create beautiful things but how bad I am at putting them together well and making beautiful places.

I guess I’ll confess that the old TV stand became my nightstand. I just moved my “college student ways” out of public view, that’s all.

Still Haunted
A.M. Otwell, 2008
Acrylic on canvas
20 x 24 inches, gallery wrapped
Original $850

“While the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.” —Flannery O’Connor

I was saving this for closer to Halloween, but the Halloween-related contests are already getting started on RedBubble.

In other news, I am delighted to report that Rose has been featured in the RedBubble Painted Florals group!

So it is that poetry always seems about to burst into song, to break into dance, but the secret of the poet’s mastery is that he refrains from crossing over–the words stay words, they remain language.

Above all, poetry is intended for the ear. It must be felt to be understood, and before it can be felt it must be heard. Poets listen for their poems, and we, as readers, must listen in turn. If we listen hard enough, who knows?–we too may break into dance, perhaps for grief, perhaps for joy.

Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006)

From Poetspeak, Paul B. Janeczko, ed.

“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.”

–Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a home-sickness, or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where the emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found the words.

– Robert Frost (1874-1963)

“I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”

- Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)