Othling Pastels

Welcome!

tothling — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:56:48 +0000

Welcome to my web site! (Which is terminally under construction!) You may view original pastel paintings in the gallery, and even shop for giclée prints and note cards. I am no longer represented by any galleries so I can keep my original paintings affordable for you! Contact me at terri@othlingpastels.com for pricing information on original paintings.

The visual world is actually colorless unless light is reflecting on it, which provides a trope for the notion that we are essentially colorless unless we reflect the light of God.
- Karen Mulder, It Was Good, Making Art to the Glory of God

In Memory of Bopper….

tothling — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:15:04 +0000

December 10, 2009….We will miss your sweet, gentle spirit…

(the following prayer courtesy of Libbie+)

Holy, holy, holy, perfect Lord of Hosts,

heaven and earth are full of the holiness of your glory.

You have created all creatures with your word.

You carry them all without being weary,

and feed them all without ceasing.

You think about them all without forgetting any.

You give to all without being diminished.

You water all the earth without running dry.

You watch over all without sleeping.

You hear us all without neglecting any.

While your presence fills every place,

they have told us about you in a way we can receive.

–An Ethiopian prayer;

From Richard Marsh,

Black Angels: the Art and Spirituality of Ethiopia

Advent Prayer/Meditation

tothling — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:45:43 +0000

What is the crying at Jordan? Who hears, O God, the prophecy? Dark is the season, dark our hearts and shut to mystery. Lord, give us the grace to awake us, to see the branch that begins to bloom; in great humility is hid all heaven in a little room.

verses one and three of the hymn, What is the Crying at Jordan? Words: Carol Christopher Drake (b.1933)

“Ambient Andy music” for meditating on, inwardly digesting, and resting in Psalm 127:1-2

tothling — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:26:42 +0000

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.

(Psalm 127:1-2, ESV)

Easter Meditation

tothling — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:15:30 +0000

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
Foryour dew is a dew of light,
and the earth will give birth to the dead.

(Isaiah 26:19, ESV, courtesy of Libbie+)

Pondering Lent

tothling — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:32:16 +0000

For the early church, Lent was just the opposite of a dreary season of restriction and self-torture. It was understood as an opportunity to return to normal life – the life of natural communion with God that was lost to us in the Fall. This perspective is clearly expressed in Eastern Orthodox liturgy and theology: “In the Orthodox teaching… the world was given to [Adam and Eve] by God as ‘food’ – as a means of life… In food itself God… was the principle of life. Thus to eat, to be alive, to know God and be in communion with Him were the one and same thing. The unfathomable tragedy of Adam is that … he ate ‘apart’ from God in order to be independent of Him… because he believed that food had life in itself and that he, by partaking of that food, could be like God, i.e., have life in himself.” (Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy)

…Lent is derived from a Saxon word meaning “spring.” In the early church, Lent was viewed as a spiritual spring, a time of light and joy in the renewal of the soul’s life. It represented a return to the “fast” that Adam and Eve broke: a life in which God was once more center and source, and the material world was again received as a means of communion with God. This return to authentic human life was made possible by the Incarnation.

-excerpts taken from Marjorie Thompson’s book, Soul Feast

Pondering Christmas

tothling — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:08:54 +0000

Every year Christmas comes around again and forces us to deal with God in the context of demanding and inconvenient children; gatherings of family members, many of whom we spend the rest of the year avoiding; all the crasser forms of greed and commercialized materiality; garish lights and decorations. Or maybe the other way around: Christmas forces us to deal with all the mess of our humanity in the context of God who has already entered that mess in the glorious birth of Jesus.

-Eugene Peterson, from the intro of God With Us, Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas

Poem of the Week #2

tothling — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:07:08 +0000

I have so loved all sense of Him, sweet might

Of color and sound,-

His tangible loveliness and living light

That robes me round.

- John Hall Wheelock, Exile from God

Quote of the Week #3

tothling — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:14:04 +0000

“When you painted on earth…it was because you caught glimpses of Heaven in the earthly landscape. The success of your painting was that it enabled others to see the glimpses too.”

- C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Quote of the Week (or so…) #2

tothling — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:24:57 +0000

“If we have nothing above us

we soon succumb to what is around us.”

- English theologian P.T. Forsythe