Here's a spread from the February issue of Sojourners magazine, featuring my illustration. I highly recommend the insightful article by Walter Brueggemann. (Copyright 2009 by Julie Lonneman)
Daily Easter Reflections: For many years I kept a note card on my refrigerator that proclaimed the message: "We are an Easter people." I was sent the note from a parishioner, a mother of 13 and grandmother of more, who was living with advanced-stage breast cancer at the time the card was written.
Daily Easter Reflections: The psalms have long been a mainstay of Christian liturgical singing. While these songs of the Hebrew Bible first expressed the relationship of Israel to the God of salvation, Christians have heard in them words of Christ and words about Christ.
Daily Easter Reflections: One of the most dramatic moments in the celebration of the Easter Vigil occurs just before the proclamation of the Gospel. The Alleluia, silent for more than six weeks, is solemnly intoned three times by the priest or psalmist, each time on a higher pitch, then repeated by all.
Daily Easter Reflections: Because most of history relies heavily on literary records written by men, discovering reliable historical data about Christian women can be challenging. This search is further complicated by the fact that Christianity has relied heavily, if not exclusively, on the written word as a primary means of understanding its own history.
My illustration for the February 2014 Celebration cover is meant to convey the many layers of meaning in the scriptures available to homilists. Though this illustration is unabashedly digital, I did start with sketching (as you can see). Then I cut the basic shapes out of plastic with a knife, also by hand. At that point I scanned them to my computer, added color and manipulated them in Photoshop. It took me just as long to come up with little sketch "a" as to execute the final. I spent the better part of a day filling sheets and sheets of paper with dozens of these roughs. I chose three and shared them with the editor and the author. We agreed this concept had the most promise and best illustrated the themes of the cover article. Quite often coming up with a compelling idea is the hardest part.
Daily Easter Reflections: Someone suggested that I reflect on Easter using my experience in rural Peru, where I had the privilege to live among people who were economically very poor.
Daily Easter Reflections: It was a balmy Trinity Sunday and the door of the old neighborhood church was open. Four of us were taking a shortcut through the back streets of Bologna, rushing to get to a nearby tourist attraction. We heard the opening hymn and looked at each other, uncertain of what came next.
Daily Easter Reflections: Life is about transformations, and for most of us, the transformations take place so gradually and in such slow motion that we are hardly aware of the changes that are taking place.
