About the Artwork #1:
We’re All Homeless
Willie Baronet
1993-2016
Collected placards from variety of sources and materials

For two decades Willie Baronet has been buying homeless signs for the purpose of using them in art projects. Baronet describes the genesis of the project as follows: “The “We Are All Homeless” project began in 1993 due to the awkwardness I felt when I’d pull up to an intersection and encounter a person holding a sign, asking for help. Like many, I wrestled with whether or not I was doing good by giving them money. Mostly I struggled with my moral obligations, and how my own choices contributed in conscious or unconscious ways to the poverty I was witnessing. I struggled with the unfairness of the lives people are born into, the physical, mental and psychological handicaps. In my struggle, I avoided eye contact with those on the street, unwilling to really see them, and in doing so avoided seeing parts of myself. That began to change once I began asking them if they would sell their signs. My relationship to the homeless has been powerfully and permanently altered. The conversations and connections have left an indelible mark on my heart. I still wrestle with personal questions regarding generosity, goodness, compassion, and guilt.” Some signs were acquired during a recent cross-country road trip starting in Seattle and ending in NYC. The placards became the basis for an exhibition where the signs were simply tacked to the wall of the gallery in a continuous line, mimicking Baronet's journey across the country. The signs have become a catalyst for conversations about the nature of home, homelessness, compassion, and how we see and treat each other as fellow humans.
http://www.weareallhomeless.org/

Signs Of Humanity is a documentary film that explores interrelated themes of home, homelessness, compassion, and humanity. During the month of July, 2014, Willie and three filmmakers drove across the country, interviewing more than 100 people on the streets and purchasing over 280 signs. Signs Of Humanity is a film about that trip.
Link to Film: http://www.weareallhomeless.org/

About the Artist #1:
Willie Baronet, a former advertising company director, is currently the Stan Richards Professor of Creative Advertising at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a full-time artist. He went back to graduate school and received an MFA in Arts and Technology from the University of Texas, Dallas, in 2011. 
https://www.smu.edu/Meadows/AreasOfStudy/Advertising/FacultyAndStaff/BaronetWillie

About the Artwork #2:
John
Sacred Streets Exhibition
Jason Leith
Found table, metal, charcoal, etching

Artist Jason Leith describes the subject of his drawing: “John is a kid, like me. He loves to read, which is an anomaly on Skid Row that he gets ridiculed for. And he wants to be a chef. Or a butler. He has a dream of going to culinary school and learning to cook his favorite American cuisine. But culinary school feels very inaccessible to him right now. He doesn’t have enough hope that it could ever be possible, and he doesn’t know where the push could come from that would get him off the streets and into school. A week after doing his portrait, I heard John finally decided to make his way back home to his family, something his skid row buddies were trying to convince him of for nearly a year.” These portraits are the result Leith using his art to ennoble members of the homeless community living on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Out of relationships with those individuals, the Jason drew and etched their faces on reclaimed found objects with saint-like symbolism. These portraits were exhibited entitled Sacred Streets in the heart of Skid Row in a temporary structure built by a team using discarded street materials.
https://sacredstreets.org/the-portraits/john/

About the Artist #2:
Jason Leith is the current Director and a Pastor at Saddleback Visual Arts, part of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. His passion is socially engaged art or when art intersects with relationship. Jason graduated from Biola University with a BFA and is currently working on a Masters in Global Leadership at Fuller Seminary with an emphasis in Art & Theology at Fuller’s Brehm Center.About the Music:
“Little Things with Great Love” from the album Work Songs

Lyrics:
In the garden of our Savior, no flower grows unseen
His kindness rains like water on every humble seed
No simple act of mercy escapes His watchful eye
For there is One who loves me
His hand is over mine

In the kingdom of the heavens, no suff'ring is unknown
Each tear that falls is holy, each breaking heart a throne
There is a song of beauty on ev'ry weeping eye
For there is One who loves me
His heart, it breaks with mine

Oh, the deeds forgotten; oh, the works unseen
Every drink of water flowing graciously
Every tender mercy, You're making glorious
This You have asked us
Do little things with great love
Little things with great love

At the table of our Savior, no mouth will go unfed
His children in the shadows stream in and raise their heads
Oh give us ears to hear them and give us eyes that see
For there is One who loves them
I am His hands and feet
For there is One who loves them
I am His hands and feet

About the Lyricists/Composers:
Audrey Assad, Isaac Wardell, and Madison Cunningham

Audrey Assad (b.1983) is the daughter of a Syrian refugee, an author, speaker, producer, and critically lauded songwriter and musician. She creates music she calls “soundtracks of prayer” on the label Fortunate Fall Records, which she co-owns with her husband. She is also one half of the pop band LEVV, whose debut EP peaked at #17 on the iTunes Alternative chart. In 2014, Assad released an EP, Death, Be Not Proud, which reflected on her recent encounters with loss and suffering--including her husband’s journey through cancer and chemotherapy. In 2018, after several years of personal pain and trials, Assad recorded her latest album entitled Evergreen, which stems from a season of renewed creativity. The album celebrates with new songs of rebirth, identity, the rebuilding of trust, and discovery of joy and love.
http://www.audreyassad.com/

Isaac Wardell is a record producer and composer who primarily writes sacred music. He is the director of Bifrost Arts, an ecumenical organization closely linked to the Presbyterian Church in America that produces written and recorded religious music, and frequently performs at Christian universities and conferences. Wardell founded Bifrost Arts in 2008 "to enrich the Church and engage the world with beauty and truth through music beautiful enough that non-Christians are attracted to it." He is also currently the Director for Worship Arts at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. 
https://www.trinitycville.org/Isaac-Wardell

California native Madison Cunningham possesses a keen understanding of songcraft for someone just twenty years old. With an ear for melody that is reminiscent of an early Joni Mitchell and an approach to guitar and vocals similar to Jeff Buckley or Nick Drake, Madison exhibits a unique ability to keep the listener on the edge. The oldest of five daughters, Madison picked up a guitar at the age of seven and was singing with her sisters and family in church by the age of twelve. She currently tours around the country, with recent shows at the Sundance Film Festival and on A Prairie Home Companion. Her latest EP, Love, Lose, Remember, was released in 2017.
http://www.madisoncunningham.com/

About the Performers:
In June 2017, a diverse group of Christian leaders and musicians met in New York City for the inaugural conference of the Porter’s Gate Worship Project. Spanning cultures, denominations, and traditions, the Project’s purpose is to engage culture and offer hospitality to the world, particularly through the unifying power of music. For three days, this group of artists, pastors, and scholars - including Josh Garrels, Audrey Assad, David Gungor, Aaron Niequist, Liz Vice, and Stuart Townend - engaged in meaningful conversation about the vocation of hospitality: “bringing work into worship and taking our worship to work.” The group also recorded a live, full-length album entitled Work Songs. The final song of the album, “Your Labor Is Not in Vain,” is a creative collaboration of Wendell Kimbrough, Paul Zach, and Isaac Wardell, and features Paul Zach and Madison Cunningham on vocals.
https://www.theportersgate.com/

About the Poet:
Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (1917-1980) was a prominent Roman Catholic priest in El Salvador during the 1960s and 1970s, becoming Archbishop of San Salvador in 1977. After witnessing numerous violations of human rights, he began to speak out on behalf of the poor and the victims of repression. This led to numerous conflicts, both with the government in El Salvador and within the Catholic Church. After speaking out against U.S. military support for the government of El Salvador and calling for soldiers to disobey orders to fire on innocent civilians, Archbishop Romero was shot dead while celebrating mass in the small chapel of the cancer hospital where he lived. A 20th century Christian martyr, his advocacy for the poor and downtrodden is reflected in today’s poetry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero

About the Devotion Writer:
Joshua Bocanegra
Pastoral of Community Life Create Church KC
Kansas City, Missouri

Joshua Bocanegra lives in Kansas City with his wife, Katrina. They have served in inner-healing and pastoral ministry for over ten years and are committed to the health and maturity of Christians within their communities. Joshua is a writer and teacher for his church and for Estuaries, a program dedicated to the reintegration of deep spirituality and intellectual rigor.