| Notes: | PLEASE USE THIS BRIEF CREDIT INFORMATION FOR FREE, NON-COMMERCIAL CONGREGATIONAL PRINTING: Cara B. Hochhalter, Swords into Plowshares. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=59043
FOR OTHER USES: Full credit information can be found below in the Copyright Source field.
COMMENTARY BY THE ARTIST:
Swords into Plowshares
Isaiah 2:2-4
"Jesus must have loved this passage from his Hebrew scriptures. Perhaps it was one of the texts that made him so sad in the face of continued violence. Jesus was a peace-maker who showed us all how God’s realm of fairness, peace and justice across all boundaries was possible then—and even now. In God’s vision, this realm of peace could be attained without the use of violence and military force... Who do you support who is working nonviolently for peace? Who gives you hope in these days? I have to ask myself how my relationship with God, and this understanding of Jesus as peacemaker, leads me to work for peace in small ways and large ways. It is a challenge that is also—life-giving!" The Rev. Cara B. Hochhalter is a United Church of Christ (UCC) minister. She received her Masters of Divinity from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where she studied the intersections of art, theology and justice. She served the Charlemont Federated Church in Massachusetts for ten years and now lives in Hyde Park, New York.
“Over the last thirty years, through my work as a Christian Educator, a seminary student and UCC minister, I have created images that interpret the powerful stories around the life of Jesus. These stories hold universal truths not limited to Christianity but relevant for all our lives and times. I find that art provides a very special means to break into these texts.”
The images in her book, A Challenging Peace in the Life and Stories of Jesus were created through the simple print-making process of carving out a block, applying ink and pulling a print. Cara says, “The interaction of light and dark is important in each image as we cannot have one without the other. The dark defines the light, and vice versa. I find this to be theological as we look to the whole—the light and the dark, the joy and the despair, the peace and the conflict—all under an umbrella of Divine Love that yearns for wholeness.”
Using her book, Cara also offers three online discussion groups: Jesus and Justice, Parables and Peace-making, and The Paradox of Humility in the Stories of Jesus.
To contact Cara B. Hochhalter for information about her art, to purchase signed prints of the images, or her book, A Challenging Peace in the Life and Stories of Jesus, please email: hochhalter.cara@gmail.com |
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