For centuries, Christians have struggled to understand the paradoxes of the beatitudes. Artist Dee Schenck Rhodes explains that her sixteen paintings were originally eight that kept splitting into two. She recognized that each painting contained two perspectives for each blessing. In her color artwork, we see a kingdom vision. When the page is turned and the grief is lifted up to God, light suffuses the white spaces with warmth.
Soft colors entwine and explode with possibilities.
Barbara Cawthorne Crafton's poetry helps the reader to hear the beatitudes in a new way. With these few phrases, she touches the experience of all who mourn and wonder how it is they can still be alive while in such pain. This gift book is short in pages but deep in reflection. Marcy Weydemuller is a free-lance writer enrolled in the MFA Writing for Children program at Vermont College.