The Shepherd and the Parables

Some of the oldest Christian images are not crosses but shepherds. On the walls of the Roman catacombs, long before anyone painted a crucifixion, believers drew a young man carrying a sheep across his shoulders. This collection starts from the same place: the Lord who is a shepherd in Psalm 23, and the Good Shepherd who, in John 10, gives his life for the sheep.

Four of the prints follow Psalm 23 through its verses, from its opening line to the quiet water, the dark ravine and the table laid under an olive tree. Next to them are the stories Jesus told to explain what that shepherd is like: the man who leaves ninety-nine sheep to go after one, the father who runs down the road to his son, the Samaritan who stops for a stranger.

They are painted in the same way: ink line and transparent watercolor on warm white paper, with the King James verse lettered in a soft script. They are quiet pictures, and they hang well together: two or three from this collection make a gallery wall that tells one story. People often choose them for a bedroom, a reading corner or a child's room, or give them in a season of grief, when Psalm 23 says what is hard to say.