In April of 2023, I was invited to come to Kosovo to work with a group of Jesus following artists there in a songwriting workshop. In the Albanian churches there, much of the music used is originally from America, and then translated into Albanian. Hence, the cultural context of the music and lyrics is often more American and Western. The objective of the workshop was to create a group of Christian songs coming out of Albanian culture, relating to Albanian themes, experience, style, and the history and struggles of that particular community.
While I am neither Albanian or Kosovar, and not even primarily a musician, I was invited along with a number of other artists, to participate along side of the musicians specifically as visual artists — to listen and walk along side of the musicians and create drawings or paintings or other art responding to the issues and struggles of their community, to authentically represent worship to the Father in their context.
For each session through the several days of the workshop, we began with a short time of Scripture study and contemplation. The intent was to use these Scriptures, promises, examples of praise, and pictures of the character of God as the starting point for the following creative session, to see our work growing as fruit from the good seed of God’s Word.
One of the passages was Isaiah 58. In particular, I was struck by the 12th verse. This is the promise of the Lord if we will spend ourselves on behalf of the hungry and oppressed:
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
In Kosovo, it’s difficult to get very far away from reminders of the conflict and destruction which came about with the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. There are still places where ruined buildings remain, and many of the people there still remember first hand the times of violence between different communities and ethnic groups. It is a part of the community’s memory.
But, as the community of believers and the body of Jesus, we are called to a different pathway. Where there has been sackcloth and ashes (v5) and the yoke of oppression, our light is called to break forth like the dawn (v8). We are called to rebuild the walls in the ruined places.
As I heard this passage, the image came to my mind of a broken building, doors blown off their hinges, shattered windows and bullet holes, crumbling to dust. But, in the middle of the ruin, I saw the budding of new life, organic, with hands raised to the sky in hope. It was as if the blocks had taken on a life of their own, in life and healing. I sketched this out as a building rising up into the figure of a woman proclaiming life and birth. A symbol of hope in spite of the ruin around her.
May our hearts hold on to the promise of Isaiah 58, to loose the chains of injustice and set the oppressed free, to find our joy and triumph in the Lord.