Part 2 - Cain and Abel

Each participant in the Religion, Spirituality and the Arts seminar I took last fall had to create a piece of art in response to the story of Cain and Abel. Writers, a fiber artist, a film maker, and artists were in the class.

I wrote a poem:

Long ago,
Two, sweet little boys,
Played side by side.
Now, the sheep cry,
The fields weep,
For the double loss.

Shared a thought:

Adversity came early for earth's first family.

And created two pieces of art pictured below:

Eve's Quilt of Loss - In the old and new testament people often expressed grief by tearing their clothes. "Eve's Quilt of Loss" represents what Eve might have don, tearing cloth following the loss of Abel by death and Cain by banishment. Strips of wool, symbolizing Abel, a shepherd, and linen, for Cain's work in the fields, are woven together and hand quilted.

Shredded Genesis 4 with the shredded cover of  Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl:  St. Augustine thought that Cain's murder of Abel was a foreshadowing of what was to happen to the Jews during World War 2. I shredded a copy of Genesis, chapter four, the story of Cain and Abel, and wove together the shredded cover of Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl, to illustrate the connection between Cain's murder of Abel and the Holocaust.

Evil shreds lives - Abel's and Anne's woven together - centuries apart, common injustice.