What we believe about ourselves is sometimes derivative from the world around us, and how we perceive who society regards us to be. Often when the bombardment of cultural messages dictates our significance, it becomes difficult to sift through the prescribed categories and determine what is true. It can become normal to live with a limited perspective about our significance, resulting in limited behavior, or self-reducing beliefs. Conversely, God, who created us as good, who embodies love in the world, and is present in my meditations as a blue light, tells us that we are blameless, precious, whole, loved, and blessed. Through the cultural symbology of the name tag, the piece Blessed and Beloved explores the dichotomy between society-driven naming and God-driven naming; asks us to examine how that which we believe about ourselves informs our lives, and reclaims a freeing and powerful alternative to society-derived misperceptions of self.

At the beginning of human history, humans were created with a vocation that is at the heart of our cells and purpose. We were equipped with the power and ability to be caretakers and image bearers; designed to reflect and maintain the beauty of creation to God and to reflect God's love and light back into creation. Along the way, and through many complicated histories, humans chose to give our power as image bearers up to forces that distract us from our true calling. This results in the fragmentation of bodies and souls, the erosion of whole relationships with God and the cosmos, and establishes the illusion that worldly power structures are dominant over human fate. However, through the vocation of Jesus, what was achieved on the cross through His death and resurrection, is a potent political and individual overthrowing of a disconnected world which reunites us with the Divine and forever reinstates our ability to live out our intended purpose; as free, whole, connected beings and co-creators with God; able once again to be true reflectors of Godly light.