Canter Bridge

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Twila Paris is the grande dame of Christian music, a classy fixture on the stage, and a genuine voice that has never been overproduced or diluted by crossover ambitions.

Paris is one of those artists who projects enough real-human street cred to her fans that it seems natural to most of them to refer to her simply by her first name. This collection of ‘Twila Songs’ links old with new to great effect.

This if no time for fear
This the time for faith and determination
Don’t lose the vision here, carried away by the motion
Hold onto all that you hide in your heart.
There is one thing that has always been true
It holds the world together: God is in control.

These lines from the album’s opener go to the core of one of Paris’ central convictions, one that has fueled an astonishingly wide range of styles for a woman who appears demure, and in her most recent more mature incarnations, almost matronly.

If the Lord’s sovereignty is a key motif of her song, Paris does not spin this in any triumphalistic direction. To the contrary, she is satisfyingly attentive to both human fragility (‘The Warrior is a Child’) and nobility (‘Faithful Friend’).

Yet this conviction is for Paris no mere theological abstraction. Like all good theology, its current flows irrepressibly in the direction of doxology:

Once in a while my heart gets lonely
Once in a while the night is gloom
Time and again you are the only one
I can hold onto
There never is a moment when you leave my side
I’ve felt your arms around me every time I’ve cried
All my life

You have been a faithful Father
I believe you word is true
You have been a faithful Father
I will follow you.

Greatest Hits leads one through the adventure of a life lived faithfully and out loud. Some of the songs burst with audacious praise. More often, they articulate for others the genuine article of constancy in the dissonant places, a discipline that has enabled Paris to discern provision where others might spy only a desert’s dryness.

This Twila Paris anthology is a collective ode to human courage and divine fidelity in times of both rejoicing and deep distress. It is a mile marker along the way to the maturation of ‘Christian music’ into something that resembles and echoes its biblical roots and the day-to-day actualization of the real-world faith that those origins continue to nourish.