Urban Psalms, Movement 1

Limited Edition Reproduction, 12" x 18"

Psalm 57:7

From an early age music was the one thing that kept my spirit alive. It became a road map for all the traffic-jammed emotions that I couldn’t put words to. Jimi Hendrix said, “Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.” Sometimes God mysteriously chooses to heal through music instead of other ways.

“Nightswimming,” by R.E.M. speaks of a perfect memory which transports me to a moment in time which I never want to leave. I find solace there. “Down there by the train,” by Tom Waits conveys God’s grace by how slow the locomotive moves, so as many as possible can get on, even “Judas Iscariot carrying John Wilkes Booth.” Each word of “The Lord’s Prayer,” by Mahalia Jackson is filled with such a deep emotion that I believe the first time Jesus heard it he said, ‘amen.’

Songs such as these and the Psalms in Scripture convey every emotion possible. Think of the wide chasm between Psalm 22 (“My God, why have you forsaken me?”) and Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd”). Music illuminates things we struggle to understand and articulates our hope.