A Place of Refuge




Hurricane Solution 3, Terrance Osborne

Psalm 16

A miktam^[a] of David.

Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”
I say of the holy people who are in the land,
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their names on my lips.
Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
nor will you let your faithful^[b] one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalms are more than poems. They are songs. They were originally set to music and used in a liturgical setting. And just like the lyrics to any soulful song, anyone can appreciate or enjoy it…but to the reader who has been where the author/songwriter has been, the song takes on a special significance. Its impact has a greater depth. The bond between the writer and the reader/listener is palpable in those moments.  You can feel the music. Psalm 16 is that way for me. It is that way for anyone who, like the writer, has needed God to provide a place of refuge.

Like several other Psalms the writer is David. We think often of his early job as a shepherd and his later career and a king, but how often do we give much contemplation of David’s work as a songwriter? If you, like me, see Scripture as Divinely inspired, then you probably don't give much appreciation to the fact that a man crafted these words, images and tunes. David was the original Indie singer-songwriter... like an ancient, Hebrew Tori Amos... except he wasn't a woman... or played piano ..or got booked for Lilith Fair. Okay so outside of most associations with Tori Amos, the analogy still stands that no matter the tragedy or triumph that David found himself in, he put it all into the song. Whether it was anxiety, joy, shame, worry or hope, David poured his soul into his music that he in return poured out as an offering to God.

It wasn't that long ago that I found myself in a similar place doing a similar thing... and by "It wasn't that long ago" I actually mean "about seven years ago" and by "doing a similar thing" I mean "doing something completely different"... but I was in a similar place (but not geographically). After August 25, 2005 I found myself in need of a refuge. I literally became a refugee. Hurricane Katrina had just (temporarily) destroyed my hometown of New Orleans, La. Now there are several entries I could (and will) write about all of the acts kindness that were bestowed upon me by family members, future in-laws, government agencies, new neighbors and total strangers, but in this blog entry I'd like to focus on one specific refuge that God provided: Art. I had always created Art but after Katrina I entered a new era of productivity in painting. Not only that, I entered a new phase of art appreciation. I studied and delved deeper into reading about art history and researching contemporary artists, like never before. One of these contemporaries was an artist that I was personally familiar with in New Orleans. Terrance Osborne seemed to encapsulate all of the vibrancy, color, energy and Jazz of New Orleans in his paintings. After Katrina his work seemed to take a turn away from the multicolored figurations that he was known for as a student at Xavier University and a toward a kaleidoscope driven, tactile study of the Uptown New Orleans architectural landscape that all of us Katrina refugees missed. A cityscape that we dreamed to see rebuilt. He painted a testament in our hearts that we were not simply refugees but rather evacuees. We were temporarilyevacuated from our great Franco-Afro-Caribbean-American city, but would soon return and reconstruct it to the radiant urban palette of Terrance Osborne's canvas.  

"...because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
You make known to me the path of life;"

On second thought maybe my opening statement is slightly incorrect. I said that "Psalms are more than poems. They are songs." A more accurate statement to say would be "All poems, whether, sung or spoken, are songs." I would go even further and say that the Arts of every type (poetry, music, painting) are all songs. They are songs sung in different media. They are sung by our hands, our hearts and our eyes. Sometimes they happen to be the same song. The song that David, Terrance and I all sang was the same. It also happens to be the same song that New Orleans Gospel queen Mahalia Jackson once sang at the March On Washington: “How I Got Over.” This song is one that remembers the trials of the perilous past but recognizes the promise of the godly present. This Psalm was the same song that Jesus sang when he conquered Death, knowing that God had made known to him "the path of life." 

Earlier I spoke of that moment when the bond between the writer and listener of the song becomes palpable. It is in that moment while reading a Psalm that the Holy Spirit can really work and perform its primary profession: that of the Comforter. This song that Jesus and the Psalmist and I all share may start out as the Blues but it finishes as Gospel. This song is my refuge. This song is about my God. ..And my God is a refuge.