By Irma Reinhold
The painting “Choices, Life over Death” was completed in 1978 when I was learning to paint with acrylic paints and was one of the students in Reynolds Thomas’ class. Our lessons were held in a church in New Castle, Delaware. Perhaps because of that, we frequently discussed religions. Reynolds was a Swedenborgian. I was curious to learn more and went to The Church of the Holy City, in Wilmington, Delaware, to speak with Rev. Randall Laakko, the minister who taught me, as well as others in the congregation, the importance of Swedenborg’s writings. He awakened us to the truth of the spiritual world and the importance of how we choose our eternal life. Those who choose to live a life of love and purpose in this material world will enjoy eternal life in a paradise with like-minded individuals. Those who choose to live a life of jealousy, hatred, and evil, due to their own preferred actions, will gravitate to those such as their own selves, and together they will live in darkness and deception, without Light, without Love.
The owl was our model, brought to our class by another student, and the branch was from my garden. Reynolds painted the skull without a model. I never really knew the significance of the painting until now, many years after its completion, and many years of observing human’s self-destruction.
Read the full issue of the January/February Messenger.
