I found this lovely angel on Pinterest and I believe its from mermag.blogspot.co.uk
I liked the fact that it was a South American angel and it got me thinking about strangers. As a white English woman, the South American angel is from a very different culture and a stranger to me.
Recently here in the UK, our government have used propaganda to try to turn us against migrants to our country. There has been all manner of scaremongering about supposed ‘benefits tourists’ and economic migrants, the facts about which paint a completely different picture.
In reality, rather than being a burden on our welfare state, migrants contribute 30% more to our economy than they take out. So the net benefit is with us.
I am getting very tired of hearsay communicated as fact and the resulting persecution of all kinds of marginalised groups.
So this art journal page is both a meditation and a plea.
A meditation in that we need to think about every stranger as someone of value (whether individuals we meet or collectively identified in a group) : someone to whom we should offer the best of our hospitality (both individually and as a nation).
And a plea that we should all question the rhetoric around those being marginalised and demonised. One of the best places to do this is at the Joint Public Issues Team website (click here) where churches have come together to look at issues of social justice and the myths and lies being told about the poorest in our society.
The Bible has a lot to say about justice and how we treat the stranger. The Old Testament is full of instructions to Israel to welcome the stranger in their midst. Abraham welcomes three strangers who turn out out to be The Lord himself, and he gives them his very best. Jesus spent a lot of time noticing and including those on the margins of society. In God’s Kingdom national borders have no meaning. The earth’s resources are for us all, to be used fairly and shared according to need.
I pray that we all might stand for truth, justice and mercy, and that we might all welcome the stranger and in so doing, discover that we are entertaining angels.
The art:
This is another page in my altered book of fairy tales. I had some old music that I stuck on as background, layered over with white gesso. Watercolours in green and red were washed over the background to give texture and the edges were doodled with green and red sharpies. I also used a dark red ink pad to finish the edges.
The verse from Hebrews is written on watercolour paper that has first been torn and painted with red and green watercolours.
The stamps depict the diversity of the people of this world and represent those to whom we must provide hospitality.
Hope you like my page and that you come and visit again.
janelydialoves 