To Be a Blessing Image License (Genesis 12:1-4a)
To Be a Blessing Image License (Genesis 12:1-4a)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD FOR ONE-TIME LICENSE
Interested in licensing a single image for worship or ministry use? This one-time license grants you permission to use this image for ministry purposes. Print the image as bulletin cover art or project the art and engage with it during worship, Sunday School, or Youth Group. We hope you might use our images as tools for spiritual formation.
If you are interested in an art print of this piece, please visit our print shop.
To Be a Blessing
Paper lace and pencil over oil paint on paper
By Hannah Garrity
Inspired by Genesis 12:1-4a
From our “Seeking” Lent & Easter 2023 collection.
Order includes:
high-res image file formatted for print
high-res image file formatted for web/projection
A PDF of the Artist's statements & scripture reference for the visual
A visio divina Bible Study Guide for you to use this image in a group study session that incorporates the ancient Benedictine spiritual practice of "divine seeing."
Credit info:
When printing and sharing online, please always include the following credits:
Artist's name | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org
From the artist:
“I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”
—Genesis 12:2 (NRSV)
As I began to study this text, the motion we are in as a human species came to mind. God calls Abram. She tasks him with relocating; she’s not really explicit as to why. Contemporary theologian Norman Wirzba speaks of our current ability to rely on global positioning systems, or GPS, to travel without needing to know where we are. What do people carry when they are forced to begin again? Medicine and technology, that’s what people are carrying across borders right now as they sustain and navigate life through the journey ahead.
How did Abram begin again? He was wealthy. He was called, not forced. He traveled with his entourage. In this image, the globe subtly depicts the route that Abram and his wives, his children, his servants, and his animals took. The lines of countries are suggested as they ripple outward. Tools for navigation used to read the stars and the shadows are echoed below the globe. Stars in the corners represent the twelve tribes of Israel.
How do we begin again? Through the paper lace, the book of Genesis overlays a canvas. The text is hard to read, clouded by oil paint. How do we begin again? Listen through the haze, through the clouded reality, for God’s call. God is calling as we begin again.
“In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
—Genesis 12:3 (NRSV)
Dear God, it doesn’t feel like much of a blessing these days. We carry on in this journey, beginning yet again. We are called, like Abram—to navigate, to persevere, to be a blessing.
—Hannah Garrity
Wirzba, Norman. This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). 50.
