Ruth and the St. John's Bible

                                                 Ruth and Naomi --  Suzanne Moore -- St. John's Bible 

But Ruth said,

“Do not press me to leave you, to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people and your God my God.
 Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus to me, and more as well,

if even death parts me from you!”

When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

Ruth 1: 16-18 NRSVue

I've written about the St. John's Bible a rare gem of a project begun in the 1990s to lovingly bring together calligraphy and illustration in creating an illuminated bible. With the invention of movable type in the 15th century, producing hand-written bibles and portions of scripture quickly diminished and eventually disappeared in the following decades. We'll try not to hold Gutenberg responsible. 

I have a fascimile of the gospels of the St John's Bible but have never seen the Old Testament illustrations. Yesterday I got an email in which an organization used one of the images in the book of Ruth when describing an event about human rights and place in our present context. 

I'm married to a Ruth and have been for 46 years. We included most of the passage above in our wedding ceremony, which certainly seemed appropriate for the occasion, although it turned out that I sometimes tried her considerable patience as we traipsed around the country during my years of ministry. 

Those days are over, although I sometimes think that she might insist we return to live in Newfoundland. We began ministry there and our son, Isaac, was born there. Ruth's love for the ocean and the wild landscape of the northeast of that province are not quite deep enough to leave children and grandchildren, but close. 

Ruth the Gleaner -- Suzanne Moore -- St. John's Bible