To behold the true beauty of another person’s inherent value simply because they Are is to attune ourselves with divine love. When we’re attuned to the love of God, we not only see others with wonder, we see ourselves with wonder too; we’re swept up into a transforming experience that has the power to change everything.
In this sermonic conversation, Dr. Eunbee Ham and I explore the ancient love poem, the Song of Songs (chapter 4.1, 3, 7 and chapter 1:5, 2:2-4). Our chat examines sexuality, body image, romance, and the spirituality that supports it all; we invite us all to a a life of greater compassion—toward others as well as toward ourselves.
Chris: The Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is one of the hidden gems of the Bible. Many people don’t know it exists. Others don’t think it matters. Some Christians have been embarrassed by its explicitly romantic and even erotic content. But it’s been a source for an ardent spirituality for thousands of years. It’s still read by many Jews after the Passover Seder to deepen the intensity of their spiritual desire for God; some Jews read it to prepare for the weekly shabbat (sabbath) to arouse fresh love for God.
Eunbee: Chris, I confess I was a little embarrassed myself and wondered what to do with this text. It’s been so long since I’ve read this book because it’s such an odd book in the bible. It’s the only book in the bible that celebrates erotic love. Elsewhere in the bible, sexual desire is constructed usually as male and dangerous and needing to be repressed and controlled. But Song of Songs looks at love and longing both from a man and woman’s perspective. It is rare to hear a woman express her sexual desire so unabashedly.
Chris: That’s exactly why it’s been ignored or downplayed or interpreted spiritually and not sexually or romantically. It can make people uncomfortable that there’s this kind of romantic literature in a spiritual book; it also can make people uncomfortable that there’s this biblical witness not only to the goodness of sex and pleasure, but to sexual parity between the genders. Religions, by and large, have done a really bad job when it comes to sex--which is why I think our culture has so many problems around sexuality. Religiously and spiritually, if we’re to thrive as persons, and if Christianity is going to be relevant in the future, I think we need to do a much better job around sexuality, pleasure, body image, and what constitutes true beauty. The Song of Song could help us do that.
Eunbee: Yes, I agree with you deeply. So how might Song of Songs help us live better today?
Chris: I think the gift the Song of Songs can offer us today is this gift of bringing together the material and the spiritual, our bodies and our souls, the human and the divine. In a sense, the Song of Songs is incarnational. It’s both a poem that recounts the physical passion and pleasure shared by two human lovers, and it’s also a metaphorical witness to the passion and pleasure shared between God, the divine Lover, and human beings, the beloved. The Song could be said to symbolize the union of two natures--the physical and spiritual.
We’ve talked a little about the physical nature of the Song--the way it celebrates the goodness of sexuality. And here’s a little about its spirituality: in the Jewish tradition, the rabbis imagine that a divine-human romance began when God courted Israel, the beloved of God. And they imagine through this biblical poem the way Israel could, when it’s at its best, respond to the divine Lover. And throughout history, many Christian saints and mystics have also turned to the Song of Songs in order not only to arouse their desire for God, but also to imagine God’s desire for them. In our praying tradition, pleasure is right and good in our relationship with God just as it is right and good in our relationship with someone we love. And in my experience, a good deal of Christians don’t really experience this kind of pleasure in their prayer life. A lot of us can’t even imagine it. Prayer’s about petition not pleasure. Often it can grown pretty cold and dull.
Over the years, I’ve had to discover for myself the pleasure of prayer after years of thinking prayer had to be hard or dutiful to be any good at all. Things began to change for me because I came across the Song of Song as devotional material. I translated the first verses of the Song and began to use the words as a way to begin my morning prayers. Here’s that translation:
“Kiss me, slowly, tenderly. For your love is life itself, better than anything else. Draw me into the secret chamber of prayer; ravish me there. Beloved, hurry!”
That may sound really odd to a lot of people, but the practice has a long history, and there’s certainly no dull, insipid, or puritanical spirituality in that is there?
Eunbee: Chris, that is both beautiful and honestly a little uncomfortable. (lol) What I find beautiful is the delight and tenderness and intimacy with God. And I’m also a little uncomfortable because of the residues of my own spiritual upbringing that emphasized the dangers of sensuality.
Chris: Right. That’s true for so many of us whether we got that message from pastors, parents or siblings. But what a tragic message. This part of the Bible wants to change our understanding and appreciation of pleasure, how we feel about our bodies, and the gift of sexuality.
Eunbee: I love how womanist biblical scholar Wil Gafney draws attention to the fact that in Song of Songs, lovers articulate their love for each other’s physical person. The text is a lovely reminder that our physical bodies are beautiful and beloved, and that loving relationships occur within and not in spite of human bodies.
Chris: Mmmm. Right. That’s lovely. And true. This is what gets so twisted in our modern culture, and I think the body/bad, spirit/good dualism that’s infected too much religious thought has been disastrous. It’s what people often try to heal outside of the church. But here we have this beautiful text, this love poem, that can help us heal ourselves and each other through religion not despite religion, to leverage the power of religion to heal our bodies and our souls, to change our experience and appreciation of pleasure, the goodness of our bodies, and the beauty of sexuality.
Notice how there are all these images in the poem--roses and pomegranates and apple trees, doves and goats and mountain slopes all used to describe physical attributes and our pleasure in them, the full experience of our senses. The images have a Garden of Eden feel to them--innocence and primal purity and goodness, as if the two lovers are looking at each other and saying as God did on the seventh day of creation: “Ah, it is all so very good.” The biblical seventh day of creation was the day God stopped doing things and just adored the creation as the beloved, felt pleasure, and exulted in the body of the Earth itself.
Eunbee: Yes! Biblical scholars Ellen Davis and Phyllis Trible both say that Song of Songs is a reversal of the Garden of Eden story where the relationship between human beings are restored as well as their relationship with the land. No one is trying to dominate the other. The lovers are expressing their sheer delight in sync with nature--roses, gazelles, apples, and mountains.
Meditating on this text this week has added a dimension of delight and pleasure in the way I approach my life. When I get up, I’ve actually started spending some time in stillness after our conversation last week. When I close my eyes to be still, so many to-do lists come charging into my mind like crazy football players, but I’ve learned to let them come, trusting that they’ll get tired after a while like you said. I begin with the phrase, “Be Still and Know that I am God.” This week, I’ve added a line of prayer from Song of songs. “You are beautiful, my love. I see no flaw in you.”
I’ve found that this phrase creates a tiny shift toward love and delight. If I happen to see something about my body that I don’t like in the mirror, I notice that and try to say something loving back. “I’m so thankful that you are healthy.” Or if I feel myself impatiently saying in an accusing tone, “So there is that email you still haven’t written,” I try to imagine a version of myself who is filled with love and adoration, who says, “I’m so grateful that someone took the time to write me, and I get to respond when I’m ready.”
In this way I’ve been watching my thoughts a lot more closely and seeking to infuse the spirit of Song of Songs in the way I imagine God’s intention toward me as well as the way I treat other people. It’s also a line that I use to pray for other people. “You are beautiful, my love. I see no flaw in you.”
Chris: Now, you’re moving us in the direction of compassion. And I think this is what all this talk about bodies and goodness, pleasure and sensuality, love and companionship and beauty can do for us. The Song wants to awaken us to the beauty of the material world, the way matter and spirit are one, never separate, how our bodies aren’t less important than our souls and when we awaken like this we can’t trash the earth, abuse our bodies, or dismiss another human being. We become compassionate.
I want you all to notice the line in the Song that Eunbee’s highlighted. One lover says to the other: “You are altogether beautiful, my love,” “and [I see] no flaw in you.”
“I see no flaw in you.”
That’s revolutionary for our lives. Look, what it wants to reveal to us from God’s side is that we’re not loved because we are valuable in the sense that we are flawless, perfect, or unbroken according to societal standards. We are valuable because we are loved, despite, or maybe because of, our flaws, imperfections, and wounds.
Think how this could change how we relate to others and to ourselves and to God.
To behold the true beauty of another person’s inherent value simply because they Are is to attune ourselves with divine love. And when we are attuned to the love of God, we see others with wonder, and we see ourselves with wonder too. We are swept up into a transforming experience that has the power to change everything.
Eunbee: I love that. When we are attuned to the love of God, we are able to see ourselves and others with wonder. Song of Songs reminds us, in a world that measures our worth with dehumanizing expectations of beauty and productivity, that we can choose otherwise. Like lovers, we can choose to fall in love with the world and delight in each other’s sheer existence. Even if we find ourselves entangled in situations that do not always serve our deepest joy, love resists the impulse to dominate and control. We learn to recognize the mystery of others. We put our energies into all that we love for love’s sake, not from a need to prove our worth or control the outcome.
Chris: Hmmmm. Love loves the imperfect. Love sees beauty in the cracks and flaws. Embracing them. “Love is patient. Love is kind,” says Saint Paul. “Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; [love sees beauty and goodness in everyone and everything.]”
As we go into a time of silence, Eunbee and I invite you to pay attention to a word or phrase, image or idea that’s come to you this morning. What’s speaking to you now? What’s stirring in you? What might the divine Lover be saying to you this morning that could change your life and change the way you encounter others, the way you experience the world?
Let’s be still and listen for the word and wisdom of God coming to each of us now . . .