Mepkin Abbey in Monck’s Corner, South Carolina dedicated their Meditation Garden of Truth and Reconciliation, that included a sculpture titled Thy Father’s Hand, on Saturday, April 26, 2025. Weeks’ bronze of a lifeless Jesus being held in the hand of God is on one end of an infinity (∞) shaped path that also features a memorial tombstone at the other end and descriptive markers along the path.

Garland Weeks said that he wasn’t really sure where the inspiration for the original maquette came from. “I got up one morning, and all of a sudden I went to the studio and I just began to work... In about six hours I had that piece and it came from nowhere. It came out of the ether through my fingertips.”

The Mepkin Abbey website states that the, “Meditation Garden of Truth & Reconciliation is a new feature created to foster a greater understanding and empathy amongst people of different views and backgrounds through our shared past, shared pain and shared desire for reconciliation. The garden is just outside the Henry Laurens family graveyard, incorporating the story of the slaves who once worked the plantation during Laurens’ time.”

Henry Laurens was an American Founding Father, merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as its president.

Read more about the dedication and the garden with the following links.