In need of a new tune
The following is an excerpt from Soul Storm: finding God amidst disaster (www.soulstormsite.com)
If you find yourself today, adrift, bored, down, or looking for some sort of “newness” in your life, we hope you find some inspiration in the words below. Read on and ask God for the life you were meant to live as you ponder being washed away in the love of God.
Washed Away
John Coltrane was a jazz master. His accomplishments have reached beyond the realm of jazz and his recordings are studied by musicians of every stripe. If you have ever taken time to listen to his work you know what it is to be washed away, lost, for a time. “Train” or “Trane”, as he came to be known, pushed the envelope in the jazz world. Always looking for a fresh sound, an innovative creation, Coltrane was perhaps, the hinge point for change in the jazz world. His music registers on a different scale from the many jazz greats that had gone before or have come since. John Coltrane’s ability with the saxophone is legendary as is his ability to carry listeners beyond what they have known or experienced. Trane’s greatest achievement as a musician, is the highly regarded A Love Supreme. Coltrane, himself, knew almost immediately that this was what his entire musical journey was leading up to. He had come to know also, how far away he was from truly living life with passion, understanding and insight. Leading up to the creation of this work Coltrane’s story was like too many we have heard about. Fame, travel, money, the pursuit of pleasure, had all led to a life of addiction and desperation. As the winds blew over the years the storm within his soul grew in intensity. Eventually, the addictions, brokenness and strife washed over him and He made a turn, a change. Out of this change, one of the most important contemporary musical contributions on record was birthed. A Love Supreme spoke to him immediately, and has arrested hearers every since.
A Love Supreme was born over a five day period in 1964. John Coltrane had been going non-stop that year and had recently seen the birth of his first son. Taking a few weeks away from his brutal schedule and planning to spend time with wife and child, Coltrane got away from it all. He took his wife and son to their new home and planned to kick back for awhile. Then “the work” came calling. Amidst the joy and expectation of having a newborn son, John Jr., came the birth of another creation. This new birth would be the crowning achievement of his musical life and would demonstrate a new found desire to leave his old life behind in pursuit of the divine call to a higher life. His new artistic creation would be a marvelous, poetic, heart stirring jazz tribute to God. After those five days of seclusion in a separate part of the house John Coltrane came back to earth a different man. His wife knew something different had taken place. Ashley Kahn, in the introduction to his book on John Coltrane, titled after Trane’s most famous work, records Alice Coltrane’s remarks,
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, we didn’t see you really for four or five days…’ He said, ‘This is the first time that I have received all of the music for what I want to record, in a suit. This is the first time I have everything, everything ready.”
This work, written as a tribute to God, became a best seller as soon as it hit the stores. Its impact still reaches listeners today. Musicologists, musicians, music lovers can tell of their first encounters with this amazing work. Ashley Kahn, points to a few of the memorable recollections of first-timers,
The first time I heard A Love Supreme, it really was an assault. It could’ve been from Mars as far as I was concerned, or another galaxy. I remember the album cover and name, but the music didn’t fit into the patterns of my brain at that point. It was like someone trying to tell a monkey about spirituality or computers, you know, it just didn’t compute. (Carlos Santana)
I was at the top of the Grand Hotel in Chicago [on tour in 1987] listening to A Love Supreme and learning the lesson of a lifetime. Earlier I had been watching televangelists remake God in their own image: tiny, petty, and greedy. Religion has become the enemy of God, I was thinking…religion was what happened when God, like Elvis, has left the building. I knew from my earliest memories that the world was winding in a direction away from love and I too was caught in its drag. There is so much wickedness in the world but beauty is our consolation prize…the beauty of John Coltrane’s reedy voice, its whispers, its knowingness…Coltrane began to make sense to me. I left the music on repeat and I stayed awake listening to a man facing God with the gift of his music.” (Bono, Lead Singer U2)
Just as Santana, Bono, and many others have gotten washed away to another place while listening to Coltrane’s work, so we too can be carried away by the Master’s purposes.
The experience of Coltrane moving on from a life of addiction and despair toward something more birthed a musical achievement that will live on for time to come. His willingness to hear, listen, and respond to God stirring him, moving him, and offering him a better life provided all of us something of beauty we can appreciate. Had he chosen to stay where he was, living in what he had previously known, we would be without this great work. And the same is true of us. When we are brought to that “moment”, that fork in the road, that turning point, we must pursue the route that God assures us is for an enlarging of the borders of our heart. Moving on and allowing God to wash away what we formerly knew is critical to our future. Like Santana, though we may not at first see the patterns in the music, in time we can come to recognize the value of God’s plan. In the wash cycle of God’s work, we find a life clean, fresh, new, and more desirable. When the old is gone and the new has come we understand what Coltrane intended in his titling his glorious work A Love Supreme. It is the Creator’s supreme love that gives our lives direction. The supreme love of God is where we find a life worth living. In the stirrings of our lives we ought to look for the hand of God seeking to lead us to a better place. Washed away in the waters of His unending love we find ourselves carried away to new life. Displacement of the life we once knew may be the very thing we need.
Bruce Smith
Optimuslife.org
This entry was posted on 22. January 2008 at 12:10 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.