Notes: | COMMENTARY BY THE ARTIST: Easter Morning Luke 24:1-9 "Hallelujah! This hard-to-believe story is the exuberance of faith—it is the exclamation mark! It is a story that puzzles many and inspires others. It is the promise of life after death in a dimension we cannot understand as of yet. It is a metaphor for the hope and the light that keeps us going even when things seem like they cannot get any worse. It is the powerful notion that we need not be afraid; that in the love of an unimaginable and unending God, we can keep on living a life of faith, seeking peace and justice in our world... The Infinite God of Peace—rises, still and always, in this great continuum of life!" 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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