W HEN I THINK OF LOVE POEMS, my first thought is Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach . . . .”
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SONG OF SONGS is a book of love poems. The title means best song of them all. Like saying King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Song of Songs is a celebration of erotic love. Not surprisingly its literal reading was quickly abandoned in favor of allegory. After all, we can’t read verses like “Your breasts are like two fawns” in church with an erotic meaning.
In much of Judaism it is read as symbolizing the love of God for Israel. In early Christianity it was read as symbolizing the love of Christ for the Church.
This is a collection of poems about the joys, the ups and the downs of two lovers. The painful longing when they are apart. Violence against the woman by her community when she searches for her lover. These poems are about a relationship between two human beings who love one another. While we’d probably use different metaphors than “My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag,” they don’t entice us; they express deep affection.
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OUR CONCEPT OF LOVE has been clouded over and altered by Hollywood, rock music and Internet porn that simultaneously extol and exploit love. Culture, in general, has fogged our view of God’s pattern of love for us. We are in a culture saturated with sexual images, but we lack prominent examples of lifelong, faithful love. We need to hear voices that speak boldly of true love. We need to be reminded of what love can be.
The Song of Songs celebrates faithful human love. Two lovers living in fidelity. “My beloved is mine and I am his.” They share a mutual passion for each other. The love between the two is faithful, joyful, satisfying, passionate, and mutual.
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IN GENERATIONS PAST, there was far less talk about “compatibility” and finding the ideal soul mate. This creates unrealistic expectations that frustrate both partners because they don’t marriage as two flawed people coming together. Two flawed lovers struggling to create a space of stability, love and consolation. They look for a marriage based on self-fulfillment, not self-denial. Today we look for someone who accepts us as we are and fulfills our desires.
Duke University ethics professor Stanley Hauerwas says the self-fulfillment ethic is destructive to marriage. It assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person.
That’s asking far too much in the marriage partner. In the Song of Songs we don’t get the poems of leaving dirty underwear on the bathroom floor. We don’t hear the rumblings of flaws, shortcomings, failures. Is this because they don’t have such instances? I doubt it. Or because they don’t let those shortcomings dominate their relationship. That’s my guess. Their focus is on growing their love. Strengthening their bonds. Affirming their fidelity. Blessing one another.
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WHEN I MEET WITH COUPLES in pre-marriage preparation, I talk about her role is to seek for him to be the best man, husband, father he can be. His role is to seek for her to be the best woman, wife and mother she can be. That doesn’t come naturally.
And none of those comes easily. Love and marriage take work. Lots of work. Hard work. You might argue, “Love shouldn’t be this hard, it should come naturally.” Attraction comes naturally. Lust comes naturally. Love comes after a time and requires ongoing hard work of writing poems of longing and anticipation and togetherness instead of Facebook slams shaming our partner.
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HAUERWAS GOES ON TO SAY that we never know whom we marry; we just think we do. The primary challenge of marriage is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.
The question arises: Do we really think neurotic, selfish, immature people suddenly become angels when they fall in love? That is why a good marriage is so painfully hard to achieve. Tim Keller says the biblical doctrine of sin explains why marriage is so painful and hard. Any two people who enter into marriage are spiritually broken by sin, which among other things means to be self-centered.
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MARRIAGE IS A REFLECTION of the Gospel.
“The Gospel is — we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared to believe, and at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. This is the only kind of relationship that will really transform us. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.”
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THE HARD TIMES OF MARRIAGE drive us to experience more of this transforming love of God. But a good marriage is a place where we experience more of this kind of transforming love at a human level.
So maybe, the Song of Songs can be a song of God’s love for us and our love in response. Love one another (especially your spouse) as I have loved you.
►See: archives.relevantmagazine.com/…/27749-you-never-marry-the-r…
