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In southern Scotland, near Dumfries in the small village of Ruthwell, stands an Anglo-Saxon preaching cross probably constructed in the eighth century.  Destroyed during the Scottish reformation in 1642, the cross was reconstructed in 1823 from all the pieces of it that the local minister could find and was placed in the garden of the church manse. Sixty-four years later in 1887, the cross was moved to a specially-constructed apse in the church where it still stands in silent testimony to the story of Christ.
 
Some words from the Anglo-Saxon poem, “The Dream of the Rood”, were etched into the cross at some point. This poem describes a dream in which the author encounters the cross on which Jesus was crucified and hears its story. Like the Ruthwell Cross, “The Dream of the Rood” offers a compelling testimony to the heroic and loving choice of God to share and redeem our humanity.
 
This exhibit of illustrations by the Scottish artist Cat Outram for Timothy Ray's Dreaming of the Holy Rood emerged from a prayerful encounter with the Ruthwell Cross, shaped  by the surviving carvings on the cross as well as “The Dream of the Rood” and the biblical telling of the incarnation of Jesus Christ from his birth through his ministry and death to his resurrection and ascension.

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