Coltranelove_supreme_5

I’m not a lover of Coltrane’s music; truthfully, I find it a bit annoying .  So why do I find myself listening to it all the time?  Specifically his signature album, A Love Supreme.  Recorded in 1964, seven years after he heard "The sound," Coltrane teaches us something about how we can keep pursuing God for a lifetime.  What do you do when you have experienced God and the yearning remains to experience him again?  Coltrane developed his own set of spiritual stages to sustain him to the end.

A Love Supreme is more than a musical album it is a series of stages for one’s spiritual life.  The album is separated into four stages and each song is meant to represent a season of the soul. 

Coltrane’s stations are as follows…

  • Acknowledgment
  • Resolution
  • Pursuance
  • Psalm

Coltrane had set a spiritual goal:  To become a Psalm.  Working backwards from that end he had thought through what stages were necessary for that to happen.  Ultimately, what was driving him is captured in the title of the album…A Love Supreme.  That is all he wanted and all he wanted to be.

What do you think of Coltrane’s stations?  Do they ring true in your pursuit of A LOVE SUPREME?

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