Once a month I get together with other visual artists at my church (if you’re a Sacramento area believing artist, contact me for an invite!) We’ve been doing visual meditations on scripture when we get together and I was inspired to suggest that we start making artist trading cards based on those meditations. So we gave ourselves the homework of creating artist trading cards and bringing them back to trade with each other this month. Tonight is the night we get back together again, so today I made my cards. (Note to my students – yes, I procrastinate, too!)
I am so happy with these cards that I didn’t really want to let them go, so I have scanned them at high resolution, allowing me to do other things with them later. I’m not exactly sure what that will be yet, but I’ve got ideas percolating and time will tell which ones really work out. At any rate, I’ll start with sharing them here, along with the scripture that inspired them below.
And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.
Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
He then said to me: “Son of man, go now to the people of Israel and speak my words to them. You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and strange language, but to the people of Israel— not to many peoples of obscure speech and strange language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you. But the people of Israel are not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, for all the Israelites are hardened and obstinate. But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people.”
And he said to me, “Son of man, listen carefully and take to heart all the words I speak to you. Go now to your people in exile and speak to them. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says,’ whether they listen or fail to listen.”
Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a loud rumbling sound as the glory of the Lord rose from the place where it was standing. It was the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a loud rumbling sound. The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the Lord on me. I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Aviv near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days—deeply distressed.
Ezekiel 3:1-15