March 24: My Light & Salvation
♫ Music:
Day 23 - Thursday, March 24
Title: MY LIGHT & SALVATION
Scripture: Psalm 27
The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against me
To eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes,
They stumbled and fell.
Though an army may encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me,
In this I will be confident.
One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.
For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.
And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me;
Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle;
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You,
“Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take care of me.
Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
For false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord!
Poetry:
Believe Me
by Irina Ratushinskaya
Believe me, it was often thus:
In solitary cells, on winter nights
A sudden sense of joy and warmth
And a resounding note of love.
And then, unsleeping, I would know
A-huddle by an icy wall:
Someone is thinking of me now,
Petitioning the Lord for me.
My dear ones, thank you all
Who did not falter, who believed in us!
In the most fearful prison hour
We probably would not have passed
Through everything—from end to end,
Our heads held high, unbowed—
Without your valiant hearts
To light our path.
THE LORD IS MY LIGHT
We’re blessed today with a powerful Psalm which I believe must be read slowly. It would be a perfect Psalm to use as your meditation as you walk a labyrinth during this Lenten time, as an act of spiritual devotion. The opening declaration, “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” resonates with all mankind who have known what it means to be in darkness and fear. We all need a helper, someone to protect us and to give us a reason to live. The Psalmist declares both the availability and sufficiency of the Lord for all people. The music for today echoes the same promises in a beautiful melody. Read and listen often to allow the power of God’s words to become resident in your soul.
Our artistic pieces today express the truth that “Art is an extension of language—an expression of sensations too subtle for words.” (Robert Henri) The poet, Irina Ratushinsakaya, was a Soviet dissident who spent seven years in the harshest of labor camps and five years of exile. She continued to write poetry with a matchstick on soap and then memorized the verses. Her poem for today acknowledges God’s salvation in the darkest times through the prayers of friends. God was Irina’s light until her death from cancer in 2017.
In a similar fashion, the truth of our Psalm is offered in a strong visual expression of Psalm 91. We are arrested by the dove taking refuge in the cleft of the rock. The burning menorah in the top left of the painting lights the Hebrew word for refuge. The entire painting symbolizes God’s eternal protection. This painting was done by an artist who had known deep grief and despair. Christa Rosier was an established portrait painter until the death of her son in 2001. From that time on, she painted only the Psalms until her death from breast cancer in 2011. Clearly, God became her light, her salvation, and her source of hope in the midst of deepest grief.
Psalm 27 is also very dear to me. At the time of our eldest son’s murder in 1992, I declared in the strongest manner, “I will never be able to say, ‘God is good’ and that my son was murdered!” Yet, in my darkest despair and grief, God patiently began teaching anew that He was good. He assured me of His goodness through the words of friends, songs sung in church, and from His Word. It was in the darkest time of the night that verse 13 of Psalm 27 reached deep into my grieving heart and I embraced the truth that, “I would have despaired, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” And with this promise I began my journey of healing and forgiveness. Eventually we had carved on Tim’s memorial plaque, “Life’s not fair, but God is good.”
Our Lenten journey is a time of preparation and of entering into darkness of the world that became ablaze with light and hope when Christ was resurrected from the tomb. Meanwhile, we wait with the promise in Psalm 27 that God will strengthen our heart. Dear friend, wait on the Lord, be of good courage. We live in the expectancy of God’s hope and goodness.
Prayer
Merciful God, you who weep with those who weep, who rescue those who have been oppressed, who incline your ear to the needy, who draw near to the abandoned, who bind up the brokenhearted, who raise up those who are laid low, and who feel compassion for those who are broken in body or in spirit: hear our prayer. Do not be deaf to our pain. Have pity on us in our affliction. Bring an end to our distress. Preserve our lives. Rescue us. Heal us. Be near to us this day. We pray this so that we might join the company of those who take refuge in you and praise your holy name. We pray this in Jesus’ name, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, on whom we cast all our cares.
Amen
–––from W. David O. Taylor, “Open and Unafraid: the Psalms as a guide to life,” p.79)
Dr. Dianne Collard
Alumna of Cook School of Intercultural Studies
Biola University
Founder of ArtsCharlotte in North Carolina
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Psalm 91: The Lord is My Light and Salvation
Christa Rosier
2002
Oil on canvas
110 x 100 cm
Artist Christa Rosier paints a wounded dove that takes refuge in the cleft of a rock. A burning menorah—beneath which is written in Hebrew the word “refuge”—symbolizes God's eternal protection and care.
About the Artist:
Christa Rosier (1960–2011) was a Dutch painter, broadcaster, writer, and columnist. Rosier was interested in drawing and painting from an early age, but chose to study at the Evangelical School of Journalism. After graduation, she was a production assistant and in 1984 she became an announcer at the Evangelische Omroep, a Protestant broadcasting association, where she presented programs such as From Heart to Heart and Kook-TV. In 1996 she retired from television to take painting lessons at the Gooise Academy in Laren, North Holland. Initially she painted mostly portraits but after the death of her fourteen-year-old son in 2001, she devoted herself to painting the Psalms. In 2009, twenty-four of her paintings, supplemented by short reflections by various authors, were published in a book entitled Psalm Palette.
https://www.christarosier.nl/c-4483577/christa-rosier/
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_Rosier
About the Music:
“The Lord Is My Light and My Salvation (Psalm 27)” from the album Psalms from the Soul: Volume #1 - Advent, Christmas & Ordinary Time
Lyrics:
The Lord is my light,
The Lord is my light,
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
The Lord is my light and my salvation
Whom should I fear?
The Lord is my life’s refuge;
Of whom should I be afraid?
One thing I ask of the Lord;
This this I seek:
To dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord
and contemplate this temple.
I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord
in the land, in the land of the living,
Wait for the Lord, wait for the Lord, with courage;
Be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!
About the Performers:
Rawn Harbor, ValLimar Jansen, Frank Jansen, and Val Parker
ValLimar Jansen is a highly regarded American singer, composer, and recording artist. She is educated and experienced as a university professor, a leader of worship, a prayer warrior, and a workshop presenter at conferences across the United States and abroad. Known especially for her work in contemporary Christian music, she sings a wide range of music, including spirituals and traditional, organ-based choral music. In 2005, with her husband Frank, she released her first solo CD, You Gotta Move. She received most of her training in music and performance at Howard University in Washington, DC, and she holds professional degrees in the arts from California State University and the University of California. Today, ValLimar tours regionally, nationally, and internationally as an inspirational speaker, a storyteller, a psalmist, a song leader, a principal vocalist, and an emcee. ValLimar composes all her music with her husband, Frank, a virtuoso piano and keyboard artist.
https://www.vallimar.com/about
Val Parker is an American composer, arranger, and recording artist who has collaborated on recordings with several Oregon Catholic Press (OCP) artists including ValLimar Jansen, Grayson Warren Brown, and Paul Inwood. Parker holds an undergraduate degree in church music and a graduate degree in composition from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He has served as a pastoral musician for more than seventeen years and is currently a professor of music at Atlanta Metropolitan College and assistant director of the Clark-Atlanta University Jazz Orchestra. Parker collaborated with Rawn Harbor, ValLimar Jansen, and Frank Jansen to create Psalms from the Soul, Volumes 1 and 2. He lives in Atlanta and serves as CEO of Global Island Virtual Entertainment Network, LLC, and Chief Operating Officer of 505 Studios.
https://www.ocp.org/en-us/artists/2709/val-parker
About the Composer:
Rawn Harbor is one of the preeminent African American Catholic liturgists and musicians in the US today. A gifted pianist and composer, he is also a much-sought-after workshop facilitator, speaker, and liturgist. Harbor studied at Furman University, Howard University, the Catholic University of America, the Catholic Theological Union at Georgetown University, and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, where he earned his master’s in theological studies in 2001. He was an adjunct faculty member and director of liturgy and music at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, and an adjunct faculty member and director of the gospel choir at the University of San Francisco. He has taught and served as coordinator of liturgy for the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University in New Orleans. Since 1974, Rawn has traveled the country as a liturgist, musician, and lecturer. Rawn collaborated with ValLimar Jansen, Frank Jansen, and Val Parker on the two-volume collection Psalms from the Soul, Volumes 1 and 2, the first psalmody collection designed for all who love gospel music. He currently lives in the Bay Area of California.
https://www.ocp.org/en-us/artists/60323/rawn-harbor
https://www.ocp.org/en-us/collections/dg/327/psalms-from-the-soul
https://olphsedc.com/people/rawn-harbor
About the Poet:
Irina Ratushinskaya (1954–2017) was a Russian Soviet dissident, poet, and writer. Ratushinskaya was educated at Odessa University and graduated with a master's degree in physics in 1976. Rejecting overtures from the KGB, she taught physics and math at a primary school before being fired for criticizing the school’s anti-Semitic policies. In 1980, Ratushinskaya and her husband, Igor Gerashchenko, began to protest the Soviet Union’s human rights violations in earnest, and Ratushinskaya’s poetry began appearing in samizdat journals. In 1982, she was arrested on charges of “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” and sentenced to seven years of forced labor. She served three years in brutally harsh conditions. During her imprisonment, Ratushinskaya wrote poems on bars of soap so she could quickly wash them away if caught and memorized her poems to write down on cigarette papers later. Many of her two hundred fifty poems were smuggled out of prison this way. Her poems express an appreciation for human rights, liberty, freedom, and the beauty of life. Her memoir, Grey is the Colour of Hope, chronicles her prison experience. Her later poems recount her struggles to endure the hardships and horrors of prison life. Enormous international outrage and Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost policy led to Ratushinskaya’s release in 1986. In 1987 Ratushinskaya moved to the United States in the same year the politburo deprived both Irina and her husband of their Soviet citizenship. Ratushinskaya served as poet-in-residence at Northwestern University from 1987–1989. After returning to Moscow in 1998 with her husband and twin sons, she continued to write poetry and television scripts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irina_Ratushinskaya
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/irina-ratushinskaya
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Dianne Collard
Alumna of Cook School of Intercultural Studies
Biola University
Founder of ArtsCharlotte in North Carolina
Dr. Dianne Collard received her M.A. and D.Miss. from the Cook School of Intercultural Studies at Biola University. She has served as a cross-cultural missionary for over thirty years. Currently, she is the Europe ministries director for artists in Christian Testimony International and the founder/director of ArtsCharlotte in North Carolina. Dianne’s book, I Choose to Forgive: An Intimate Journey with God, which is about the healing freedom of forgiveness in the aftermath of her son’s murder, has been published in sixteen languages and has been made into a short film called Abstraction.