For Ìfẹ́: The Search for Higher Love

Cue Two

Ingonyama nengw' enamabala… Ingonyama nengw' enamabala…

The speakers let out the song as we wiggled side-to-side in front of the congregation. Our white-gloved hands and white-socked feet moved in perfectly practiced choreography.

If this were fiction, that is how I’d set the scene. But it isn’t. It’s another "Super Story" of mine.

The Love Songs

Because my first encounter with Diana Ross’s "He Lives in You” was in church, you wouldn’t blame me if I told you it took me years before finding out that hers is a cover of Lebo M’s for The Lion King, and that it isn’t a gospel song.

Like many, I can also make a case with the lyrics that there’s some spiritual touch in there.

Just read these lyrics and tell me they don’t sound like scripture

Wait! There's no mountain too great

Hear these words and have faith

Yes. Have faith. Look at the mountain that’s Diana’s career. She had 6 songs on the billboard 100 and 4 of them sound christian to me:

I could tell you that “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” for a faith In Jesus. “Touch Me in the Morning” sounds like ‘Good Morning Holy Spirit’. What is “Endless Love” if I'm not sure of what happens when we die? And who were charged with turning the world “Upside Down” if not christians?

Right? Wrong.

I realised I may be stretching. None of the songs comes close to my allusions like “He Lives in You” except “Endless Love”:

My first love, you're every breath that I take

You're every step I make

The song reminded me that this is not necessarily about Diana but one of my long-standing beliefs about music, especially western love songs: that man is always seeking something Higher.

The Talking Drum Revelation

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This brings me to the recent Britain’s Got Talent audition by the Lux Choir which I couldn’t stop playing because they beautifully transformed Whitney Houston's version of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” into another gospel song.

Whitney made a plea:

Things look so bad everywhere / In this whole world, what is fair?

Bring me a higher love / Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?

She was right. If things - indeed - look so bad everywhere, then the Higher Love has to be brought to us.

The Lux choir brought it to Whitney. They broke into a dance mid-performance to the rhythm of the talking drum, and preached the Gospel to the BGT audience:

Nínú ayé, ìfẹ́ Olúwa ló ṣe kókó. (In life, God’s love is the point)

Nínú ayé, ìfẹ́ Olúwa lo ṣe pàtàkì (In life, God’s love is of utmost importance)

Ìfẹ́: Receiving the Love and the Will

In the Yoruba Bible, "Ìfẹ́ Olúwa/Olorun" carries a peculiar weight of meanings. It means the Love of God, but it also translates to the Will/Desire of God.

So:

• The Apostle Paul tells us that God desires (His Will) all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
• Jesus tells us that God proved this love (His Ifẹ) by giving His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish.
• When we step into this "Higher Love," we find the "Will of God." Then Paul reminds us that: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Thank God for Love Abolade’s (Aunty T30) powerful voice, I shed a tear replaying the Lux Choir’s performance, because it reminded me of Whitney’s biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody. In it, you see the tragedy of a woman who sang about a "Higher Love" and her share in the unfairness of this world.

This essay cues in Ìfẹ́Olúwa, and I hope that you receive this Higher Love because:

Ingonyama nengw' enamabala...

…which translates to "A lion and a leopard come to this open place" signifies royalty and the coexistence of the wild. But to me, it is a picture of Christ: the Lion of Judah who invites us, the "leopards" who cannot change our own spots, to reign with Him because He has washed those spots away.

In this world, things may look bad everywhere, but Ìfẹ́ Olúwa ló ṣe kókó. Ìfẹ́Oluwa ló ṣe pàtàkì. I have brought Him to you. Receive Him.