“Washington National Cathedral offers On All My Holy Mountain in its Christmas catalogue”

Wilson-Hartgrove said he “was struck by the beauty” of Rosenberry’s final product, “what the monastic tradition calls the illumination of the text.”

Rosenberry also produced another handmade tome, A Word in Season, how good it is! A Christian Year in Sermons, a compilation of sermons delivered by 11 preachers of the Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship. The sermons of Wilson-Hartgrove, Villegas and four others with ties to Duke Divinity School, Fred and Elizabeth Bahnson, Alex Sider and Peter Dula, are included in Word in Season.

Katz won’t say how much time goes into making her books. “We like to make things with our hands,” she said. “I don’t think I can tell you time, We don’t get paid for our time here.”

The Washington National Cathedral museum store also chose to list On All My Holy Mountain in its 2006 Christmas catalogue, an honor which signifies the cathedral’s commitment to global peace and grassroots endeavors like Rutba House.

Both books can be ordered from the publisher at www.rosenberrybooks.com or by calling 1-800-723-0336. Profits from “On All My Holy Mountain” go to the work of Rutba House.

At the Heart of the Peace Church Tradition, part 3, by Patrick O’Neill
Divinity Magazine, winter 2007, volume 6, number 2

“in its artistic beauty, has the feel of a sacred text.”

When someone picks up On All My Holy Mountain: A Modern Fraktur to read the inspiring words of Duke Divinity graduates, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Isaac Villegas, at first they may think they are reading from a one-of-a-kind handmade text.

The cover, made from Italian fiocardi stock, is bound together with a coarse linen cord fashioned into a bow. Inside the book, brilliant color panels, each printed on beautiful sheets of textured paper, appear to be hand drawn. The book, in its artistic beauty, has the feel of a sacred text. Instantly, the reader embarks on a multi-sensual journey, and that’s just the way publisher, Diane Katz at Rosenberry Books likes it.

Katz, who met Wilson-Hartgrove and Villegas when all of them were worshipping together at the Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship, asked the two young preachers to help her create, “On All My Holy Mountain,” a 58-page handcrafted book that offers the pair’s personal reflections on numerous scripture passages that Wilson-Hartgrove calls, “the heart of the peace church tradition.”

Katz approached Wilson-Hartgrove and Villegas, who in 2003, along with Jonathan’s wife, Leah Wilson-Hartgrove, founded the Rutba House, an intentional Christian community located in Durham’s Walltown neighborhood, and asked them if they would write reflections on the scripture texts, which were also used during the community’s morning prayer time.

The reflections were turned over to Katz who then used them as the basis for her original fraktur art creations that accompany each reflection used in “On All My Holy Mountain.” Fraktur is an early American spiritual folk art that includes the kind of elaborate calligraphy seen in the text of Holy Mountain.

At the Heart of the Peace Church Tradition, part 1, by Patrick O’Neill
Divinity Magazine, winter 2007, volume 6, number 2

“Pax Christi USA and Fellowship of Reconciliation ordered special editions.”

The final product, each one handcrafted by Rosenberry Books in a Chatham County (NC) workshop, is a combination of Diane’s artistic acumen and Rosenberry technological innovations, which allows Diane’s artwork to be reproduced with a quality that gives them an original-like appearance.

“We create books as an experience. An experience that takes you page by page through time the way a film does.” Katz said.

The text, which includes strong condemnation of war by Wilson-Hartgrove and Villegas, also caught the attention of two national peace organizations, Pax Christi USA, a Catholic peace group, and Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace group. Both organizations ordered special editions of On All My Holy Mountain, which were personalized with appropriate prefaces for each organization.

In one reflection on Psalm 120, Wilson-Hartgrove wrote: “We are familiar now with the accusation that our nation fought a war based on lies. To the psalmist this is no surprise: peace is the truth, war always a lie and we the people, tangled in untruthfulness, mourn the absence, feel the wound of deceitful tongue, sharper than an F-16.”

Wrote Pax Christi: “On All My Holy Mountain offers us an opportunity to study Scripture and our reactions to it and to explore our strengths and shortcomings, as we commit to action for peace in our daily lives. This book recognizes that this process cannot be rushed.”

“Even when we know of the world’s injustices and dare to examine our role within them, how often in our busy lives do we sit in contemplation with sacred readings or with artwork that speaks to the Divine? How often do we slow down, allowing the messages to penetrate to the depths of our beings? How often do we leave these experiences a changed person?”

At the Heart of the Peace Church Tradition, part 2, by Patrick O’Neill
Divinity Magazine, winter 2007, volume 6, number 2