John Coltrane--disciple

Listening to John Coltrane's "Meditations" is work--enjoyable--but work. In this five-movement piece, Mr. Coltrane creates an all-encompassing worship experience. The headings for each movement--The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; Compassion; Love; Consequences; and Serenity--tell you this will be a marathon and not a sprint. But they also frame the expression of faith wonderfully.

It begins with the acknowledgment that God is. At some point in our lives--and, yes, there are children who awaken to this presence as well as adults--there comes a moment that declares, "God is!" For some, it is a blast of insight--a moment that can be dated--"On October 4 at 1000 PM in a Motel 6 in Baton Rouge, I met God over a cup of coffee..." For others it is a long march up an Everest-like mountain to find the ineffable presence of God. Years of life, work, love, disappointment, and success slowly unveil the God behind it all. Neither is better than the other, but simply the way we are. They are equal in the awakening to God. There comes an assurance that God is there, listening, actively present, and redeeming. Mr. Coltrane found God through music after battling with his demons--mostly the effects of a heroin addiction--that hollowed him out and left longing for God. He suddenly found that God spoke through the music, healing, restoring, and blasting away the flotsam to reveal the sweet soul within.

Finding that God is leads to a second area of exploration--what sort of God is this? The closer we draw to God, we find that God is compassion. God does not and will not cast us off. Christ's most poignant analogy for God was Waiting Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The Father does not reject the wayward boy, but waits for him to come to his sense, welcoming his restoration. The Father also waits for the Elder Brother to awaken, too--something we do not see in the story. The Father leaves the boy out in the yard to weigh his options, find himself, and come inside. That is compassion. It is patience with strength behind it to out-wait everybody. Compassion means giving others space and time to be and to seek and to awaken.

Knowing God as compassion then becomes real as we try it ourselves in love. We find that as we model our lives on God's love, they make more sense. Problems begin to fade. Solutions begin to rise. Yes, love gets really messy--Mr. Coltrane's music here is surprisingly complicated and atonal--but isn't that how it is? A cynic once remarked, "Marriage begins with irrational misunderstanding and ends in tragic understanding." Ouch. But love gets complicated. In that complication, we find the power of compassion confirmed. As we seek to understand ourselves and one another, we find the source of patience--if we allow our ready annoyance to fall silent. The Elder Brother can come inside as soon as he sees his younger sibling as he is. His journey to wisdom has cost him. Remaining outside, feeling unappreciated, only hurts the Elder Brother; coming inside will, ironically, confirm his own worth, value, and presence. He will have understood love.

But, of course, there are consequences to pursuing love. First and foremost is that our culture and context really has no comprehension of love. The world sees the Waiting Father as an old fool completely taken advantage of by his baby boy. What a knucklehead! Sadly, living by love sometimes means separating from others because they cannot or will not understand the effort to love. There is fear in welcoming anyone--i.e., everyone--into the circle. There is fear in opening the umbrella wide enough to end the power of human distinctions and divisions. This might hurt a bit. Mr. Coltrane's music gets a bit wild here--unhitching from the consequences will do that.

It ends in serenity, though. The longer and more intimate the walk with God, peace comes and is possible. We begin to see how vast creation is and welcome it. We begin to see the sweep of humanity as wondrous instead of terrifying. We begin to de-emphasize being right in favor of being embodiments of love. We begin to see the fallacy of judgment and the welcome of tolerance. We join the party in the Father's house where love is joy and the fullness unimaginable.

Listen to the music. Mr. Coltrane tries beautifully hard to give us a soundtrack for the walk of faith. Take a step.