Tystnadens lovsång: Om sången som uttryck och medel i Flodbergskretsens kenotiska spiritualitet.

Sammanfattning: Music has several functions in the Christian community and worship – it unites people by harmonizing many voices into one, it creates community and shapes identity through its message, and by its piercing beauty it is a sign that indicates and marks out eternity. This essay asks the questions why the small circle of friends with a shared interest in mysticism, Flodbergskretsen, elaborated their own songbook Tunes from the life of the interior world [Toner från det inre lifvets värld], and what ”the inner song” that the songbook’s preface speaks about really is. There seems to be a connection between the existence of the songbook and the inner song: by singing the songs, by giving music life in one’s inner space, you let your own self – body and mind – become an instrument for music that stems from a divine source. But only when man is silent he or she can resonate the heavenly tune. The inner song becomes audible when the human singer is silent in herself, but is letting someone else sing in and through her. Flodbergskretsen’s understanding of a life belonging to the Christ who is eternally living but hidden in this world, comes around in their understanding of singing. In this we see how song both becomes an expression, a symbol, for the Christian practice known as self-emptying – kenosis – and a means for it to happen.