This Week

This week at praxis...Summer Lovin'

The sound of my lover coming from the hills quickly, 
like a deer upon the mountains
Now at my windows, walking by the walls, 
here at the lattices he calls
Come with me, my love, come away
For the long wet months are past, 
the rains have fed the earth
and left it bright with blossoms
Birds wing in the low sky, 
dove and songbird singing in the open air above
Earth nourishing tree and vine, 
green fig and tender grape, green and tender fragrance
Come away with me, my love, come away
---- Song of Solomon 2:8-13, a new translation by Marcia Falk
 
You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs.
But I look around me and I see it isn't so.
Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.
And what's wrong with that?
I'd like to know, 'cause here I go again
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. 
----Paul McCartney, "Silly Love Songs
 
One of the most celebrated collections of ancient love poetry, 
the Song of Songs is the only book of love poetry in the Bible, 
and as such it has been the subject of much speculation and controversy.  
For centuries, both Jewish and Christian traditions 
viewed the Song as spiritual allegory, thus justifying i
ts place in the Biblical canon; but this mode of interpretation, 
moving and imaginative as it may be, does not explain 
the text's primary level of meaning...It is finally simpler 
and more illuminating to view the Song as a variegated 
collection of different types of lyric love poems... 			
-- Marcia Falk, Love Lyrics from the Bible

Let us consider a few ways in which desire or passion, 
thought not exhaustive of the love between lovers, 
is an important dimension both of that relationship 
and of the relationships between God and the world.  
We begin with the simple reminder that the Song of Songs 
is part of our scriptural tradition.  
Many have ignored the book or found it an embarrassment, 
but it has served to check those who would like to say 
that Christianity has no place for passion except in 
marriage and for the sake of procreation.  
Although the Song of Songs praises human love and nowhere 
mentions the deity, some, especially medieval mystics, 
have not hesitated to use it an an analogy for the 
relationship between the soul and God...
Whatever one may think of the theology here, 
the imagery powerfully expresses divine passion for 
the world as well as extraordinary intimacy between God and the world.
----Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age 


 

Love comes with a knife, not some shy question,
and not with fears for its reputation!
I say these things disinterestedly. Accept them in kind.
Love is a madman, working his wild schemes,
tearing off his clothes, running through the mountains, 
drinking poison, and now quietly choosing annihilation.
There are love stories, and there is obliteration into love.
You've been walking the ocean's edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry.
You must dive naked under, and deeper, under, a thousand times deeper!
Love flows down.
The ground submits to the sky, and suffers what comes.
Tell me, is the earth worse for giving in like that?
Don't put blankets over the drum! Open completely.
Let your spirit ear listen to the green dome's passionate murmur.
----Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks



Questions:


	What is a love poem doing in the Bible? Should it be there? 
	Do you think the Song of Songs has anything to do with God?
	How is Rumi's poem about his relationship with God
	Is erotic language an appropriate way to talk about God?  Why or why not?
	Is a relationship with God an intimate one?  Should it be?
	Name a silly love song about God.