By: Bill Donaghy

Isn't it refreshing when we stumble on a song that gets us pondering the deeper questions? (A snappy rhythm doesn't hurt either.) Enter one of our culture's "twisted mystics," Steve Winwood, with the very popular hit song "Higher Love" from 1986.

Think about it

there must be higher love

down in the heart or hidden in the stars above.

Without it, life is wasted time

Look inside your heart

I'll look inside mine.

Now there's some good advice; introspection and exploration! Look within the heart and without to the universe. It is amusing that the Venerable John Paul II followed the recommendations of this 80's pop song as he wrote the Theology of the Body. It's called "phenomenological personalism." (Impress your friends with that one.) Essentially phenomenology looks at our human experiences – what attracts and repulses our hearts, what draws us through this life forever chasing the Good, the True and the Beautiful.

Steve Winwood asks a very phenomenologically inspired question  -"What fuels us in our relationships? What drives us to be more?" It must be, as he supposes, a higher love. To this insight, any self-respecting Christian would respond "Amen." And this Higher Love has a Name... The Most High!

Facing our fear and standing out there alone.

A yearning and it's real to me

There must be someone who's feeling for me.

To quote another 80's hit, "somewhere out there, beneath the pale moonlight" someone IS thinking of you, and loving you tonight. This higher love is in fact real to me too, and I've tasted it even in my human relationships. Don't we talk of our love as being something bigger than just us, something we "fall into?" Well, it's more so something we are drawn up into. The Catechism tells us that "God is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange" (CCC, 221).

The recently celebrated feast of the Holy Trinity reminds us of this glorious reality and our ultimate destiny. Did Mr. Winwood have an inkling of this? Well, who knows? (But he's not called a twisted mystic for nothing!) Listen to this almost mystical prayer from the 80's pop star:

I could light the night up with my soul on fire

I could make the sun shine from pure desire.

Let me feel that love come over me

Let me feel how strong it could be!

Bring me a higher love!

So the next time you are in the supermarket, or put on hold while trying to pay your phone bill, and this classic tune comes on, just use it as a chance for prayer. As Bamidbar Rabba once said, "Entrances to holiness are everywhere. The possibility of ascent is all the time. Even at unlikely times and through unlikely places."

Look inside your heart

I'll look inside mine.