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. It was a mixed group of creatives, but primarily musicians and songwriters of Albanian heritage. 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 American and Western. The main objective of the workshop was to create a group of worship songs coming straight out of the Albanian culture, relating to Albanian themes, experience, style, and the history and struggles of that particular community.
While I am not Albanian or Kosovar, and not even primarily a musician, I was invited along with an number of other visual artists, to participate along side of the musicians specifically as visual artists — to listen to and walk along side of the musicians and create visual representations of the issues and struggles of their community to authentically represent worship to the Father, in their context.
To begin our creative sessions, we had a Bible teacher who came to open up number of Scripture passages as beginning points for our work. One of those passages was Isaiah 58, and in particular, the 12th verse:
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, the budding of new life, organic and with hands raised to the sky in hope. Almost like the blocks had taken on a life of their own, in 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.