I’m sitting transfixed in my study listening to Christian Forshaw’s utterly heartbreaking rendering of Come Down O Love Divine. I wrote about this CD, "Sanctuary", some months ago, enthusing about this beautifully conceived and performed album.
One of the recurring, indeed pervasive and persuasive notes in Elizabeth Johnson’s account of contemporary Christian thinking about God is that of a Love that is at once mystery and gift, transcendent and intimate, sovereign and self-giving. Forshaw’s rendering of this late middle ages hymn, Come Down O Love Divine, accompanying Aimee Green’s voice which is pure with devotional intensity and intent, simply raises my heart into another degree of spiritual awareness. The combination of human voice as embodied longing, and of the saxophone through which musical improvisation gives breath to unassuaged yearning, communicate degrees of spiritual desire that are breathtaking. And I mean breathtaking – the word is used with specific intent – the saxophone played by the controlled expulsion of breath, and the soul’s longing similar to overworked lungs inhaling oxygen, combine in spiritual aspiration and a final devotional surrender to the grace that transforms moral personality, transfigures character and transmutes human longing into fellowship with the Love Divine.
And so the yearning strong
with which the soul will long,
shall far surpass the power of human telling;
for none can guess its grace,
till we become the place
wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling.
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