How Poetry Can Be Depicted in Drawings

Art Creation and Analysis

"Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken"

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116. Retrieved from http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116.html

These lines mean to me that love is something that does not change. It is more than a feeling, because feelings come and go. Sometimes we feel something that we call love intensely and other times not at all. Yet what happens when someone needs us, needs our help, needs some empathy or sympathy from us, or just needs a hand -- some time out of our day? Do we give it? That is what love is to me: it is an exercise of the will -- something that starts in the mind but is made real and manifest in the acting. It is constant, as Shakespeare implies with this poem. It does not turn its back; it is always dependable; it is principled; it is true and never false. If you say you love someone then you have to be willing to accept that person, even if they change and are not as lovely as they first were when you met them. Love does not alter when it alteration finds, as Shakespeare says.

Shakespeare wrote in England when it was being divided between Protestantism and Catholicism. His view was that the religion should not change because it shows a disloyalty and a false spirit of love. That is why Shakespeare critics were annoyed that "he died a Papist" -- that is, with the last rites of the Roman Church.

The intended audience of the poem was Shakespeare's friend, to whom he wrote all his sonnets. It is meant to be taken as advice about his friend's marriage: it suggests that marriage is until death -- no matter what the King of England is doing. The poem is written in typical Shakespearean iambic pentameter.

To me, these words are religious or can be connected to religion because if God is love, then God too does not change. In the Christian religion, God loves everyone and "looks on tempests and is never shaken" -- and this is seen when Christ calms the storm that frightens the sailors. God gives up his life for everyone in the Christian religion, and this is the ultimate sign of love -- that even after the people crucify him, he still forgives them. He never changes.

That is why in this picture I have drawn two people who love each other: they are a man and a wife getting married in a church. They are crucifying each other and doing it gladly. This is meant to be shocking and to make people ask, what is love? If love is taking up one's cross, then this is love, that they are willing to accept that they are each other's cross and that they will accept this for the rest of their lives.

Interview Questions for Sister Carol Keehan

1.) Sister, in 2005 you became the 9th president of the Catholic Health Association of the United State (CHA, 2005). How great did you feel this responsibility, overseeing so many hospitals across the country?

2.) Pope Benedict XVI awarded you the Pro-Ecclesia et Pontifice as a sign of your commitment to displaying the message of Christ: How would you best describe this message to young people today?

3.) What to you is the most challenging aspect of the Christian faith that modern people face?

4.) Religious liberty is a controversial issue in America at this time (Ellis, Grinberg, 2016). What is your position on this issue?