Reinterpreting Rockwell

“For Freedoms,” photo-illustration by Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur | Time | bit.ly/2Bt8s3I

Sister Greta Ronningen, an alumna of Bloy House, appeared on the cover of Time’s Nov. 26/Dec. 3 edition. Bloy House is the Episcopal Theological School of Claremont.

Sister Ronningen holds a master’s degree in spiritual formation and is cofounder of the Community of Divine Love in San Gabriel. She is the senior Episcopal chaplain at Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, co-director of Prism Restorative Justice, a ministry of the Diocese of Los Angeles, and author of Free on the Inside: Finding God Behind Bars (CreateSpace, 2016).

She appears in the upper right corner of the cover, which illustrates a cover essay by Viet Thanh Nguyen, a university professor, essayist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist.

She was “participating in an interfaith event in Los Angeles,” said an item in Bloy House’s newsletter. “Following the event she was invited to join a number of religious leaders from across the city for a photo shoot for Time magazine that was a 21st-century reinterpretation of Norman Rockwell’s beloved ‘Freedom of [Worship]’ painting.”