The Tree...

What's with the tree?

The StreetLevel Conference has two major goals: to teach and to nurture. At the high quality "close up" sessions, attendees will receive practical instruction and guidance from a range of experts that will enable them to better carry out their day to day work. During the Plenary sessions, delegates will all gather together for meaningful times of nurturing and reflection.

Thinkhouse Design was approached to explore the creative direction for the StreetLevel Conference in 2009, the theme of which is "A Legacy of Justice". We began by deconstructing this rather daunting theme, and carefully considered the meanings of each of the words, both independently and as a phrase. This exploration allowed us to get inside what is seemingly a very large and somewhat abstract theme. What follows is a linear look at the lateral thinking that led to the look and design for StreetLevel IV, A Legacy of Justice.

Legacy.
A legacy is a gift for some future use, familiar to all when we speak of "leaving behind a legacy". It is further defined through synonyms like bequest, heritage, endowment, and inheritance. These words imply the passage of time, gifts of historical significance left for the future. Through the training and equipping component of the conference, delegates will be learning how to practically live out their calling to serve others. Thus, a legacy is built on a daily basis, in the present, for the future.

Justice.
When we see this word, retributive justice is what most people think of first. This is the punishment for wrong doing. Retributive justice is concerned more with the process than the outcome. Have correct rules and procedures been followed? Was justice done? However, the justice we speak of in context to our theme is not retributive or punitive, but rather restorative. The synonyms here from a biblical stand point are righteousness, integrity, equity, straightness. A helpful definition we found was "Justice is: right relationships among all things in the created order of things". This presupposes God's intention for people to be in community. When people had become poor and weak with respect to the rest of the community, they were strengthened so that they could continue to be, or once again become effective members of the community, living with them and beside them.

Biblical Justice restores people to community.

Now we are getting somewhere.

A tree has two major parts - the visible and the invisible.The entire growth above the ground with all its beauty, colour and strength is made possible only when the "invisible" root system is within a healthy environment. In the creative execution for the conference, (some of which is still to be unfolded) all of the nurturing and reflective content is illustrated by a vertical motion, like that of a tree's roots growing deeper into the sustaining soil. The building and teaching sessions are illustrated by horizontal motion: the branches reaching out to produce the leaves and fruit that lead to new life.

Legacy of Justice.
Together,these two directions, the outward and inward, present a healthy view of Biblical Justice and a picture of a vibrant church.

Invisibly sustained in our relationship with God the Father, for the mission of bringing about the Kingdom. It is Contemplative Action.

A Legacy grows, like a tree, over time and will benefit those who never took part in its original planting. Its seed is taken from another tree, the fruit of someone else's legacy. Justice flourishes when it is firmly rooted in a healthy place, growing and spreading out to provide relief and comfort, both visibly and invisibly.

The website and the direct mail postcard state that: The truest hallmark of real justice is that every person, regardless of economics, age or culture, has the opportunity to leave legacies of meaning; legacies of hope, redemption and reconciliation, indelible imprints of truthtelling and peacemaking. Justice, demonstrated and experienced, always leaves a legacy.

It is our hope at Thinkhouse that all points of contact with the conference from our creative, to arrival and full participation in Ottawa, that every delegate experiences the thoughtfulness and care put into this event on their behalf by StreetLevel: the National Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness.

We are honoured to do what we do on their behalf.