A Love Supreme

Alice looked up to see her husband reappearing after he had disappeared for five days in a secluded part of their Long Island home. Alice noticed that John seemed light-hearted, and she would later describe his emergence with these words:

“It was like Moses coming down from the mountain, it was so beautiful. He walked down and there was that joy, that peace in his face, tranquility. So I said, ‘Tell me everything..’… He said, ‘This is the first time that I have received all of the music for what I want to record, in a suite. This is the first time I have everything, everything ready‘.”

Just a few months later in December of 1964, John Coltrane began recording his work, A Love Supreme, in a New Jersey studio. Supreme was a four-part suite. He titled the sections Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance, and Psalm. Acknowledgement is perhaps the most famous part, and is sometimes renamed A Love Supreme. It commences with a gong, and in its opening sequence brings a rising and welcoming tension. It continues on through repetitive cymbals and into its distinctive four-note bass sequence, before the saxophone joins in and the music takes off.

Acknowledgement, as well as the entire album, is widely recognized as having a deep spiritual energy to it. This is intriguing considering that the only words in the entire album are Coltrane’s baritone voice chanting “A Love Supreme” nineteen times towards the end of Acknowledgement. Coltrane described the album as “a humble offering to Him ” in the original liner notes. Coltrane experienced a spiritual awakening in 1957, and in grateful response to God’s call on his heart, he asked that he might make music for the joy of others. He writes a “period of irresolution did prevail. I entered into a phase which was contradictory to the pledge and away from the esteemed path; but thankfully, now and again through the unerring and merciful hand of God, I do perceive and have been duly re-informed of His OMNIPOTENCE, and of our need for, and dependence on Him. At this time I would like to tell you that NO MATTER WHAT…IT IS WITH GOD. HE IS GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL. HIS WAY IS IN LOVE, THROUGH WHICH WE ALL ARE. IT IS TRULY – A LOVE SUPREME. “

What do we learn from Coltrane? We can learn much from listening to A Love Supreme. Its spiritual undercurrent is dynamic and its beauty brings me to tears on occasion. The music has a feeling of something powerful…something larger than myself.

But there is more to learn as we think about Coltrane’s experience and expression in A Love Supreme. We find them desirable, much like Blaise Paschal’s Night of Fire . We long to experience and express God lavishly. We want to taste of the Divine as richly as it is heard in Coltrane’s music. We want these experiences as evidence of God’s presence and activity in us. But the truth is, we don’t often have mountaintop experiences. Some of us have had a a few more than others. Some of us have had none at all. But none of us live there.

The spiritual life is much more of a grind than a constant Sinai encounter. The intense feelings and emotions of God’s presence are to be rejoiced over, for they are beautiful and amazing. Humanity’s rich experiences and beautiful expressions of the Divine can be real and substantial. But we cannot live to seek after the experiences alone, because they just don’t happen consistently.

So what evidence of God’s presence do we look to? What spirituality do we experience and express?

The affirmation of the Divine in us can be found in the present, but it is more boldly grounded in the past. The evidence that God is present in us, that He is expressing Himself through us by His Spirit, that He is experiencing us and we Him…and even making His music in us and through us, is Jesus. Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is more certain than even the place we’re sitting right now. To know this in our hearts and let it seep out in our everyday lives is to experience and express Him. Sometimes we sense Him and His grace intensely. Sometimes not at all. But He is there. To live a life of faith and repentance with Him as the substance is to sing God’s song.

I’m not writing that experiences are bad…hardly. I’m just asking what should we strive for? What do we rely on? What evidence do we need to consider ourselves “spiritual”? Instead of focusing our lives at looking forward to the next spiritual experience or expression, we need look no farther than Jesus. Because there is something more certain than even an experience or an expression: Christ and His work. And He is A Love Supreme.