5:10-16 -- My love is fresh and ruddy...his head is golden...his locks are palm fronds and black as the raven. His eyes are like doves... his cheeks are beds of spices...his lips are lilies...his hands are golden...his belly is a block of ivory...his legs are alabaster columns...his conversation is sweetness itself, he is altogether lovable. Such is my love, such is my friend.
While it is true that physical beauty should not become the be all and
end all we have made it out to be, the physical attractiveness of another
human being is something to be enjoyed and appreciated. The temptation is
always to objectify and thus use the individual we are attracted to. But to
be able to look upon another's physical grace with thankful eyes and a
gracious heart is a grace in and of itself.
The woman in the poem lists all the attributes of her lover that makes
him attractive to her. His physicality is a concrete representation of her
desire for him and the reality of his love for her. It is his lips that have
kissed her, his legs carried him to her, his arms in which she has rested and
received his passionate, undying love. Even his conversation is sweet, a
conversation that, as with all lovers, does not necessarily have to be deep
and thought provoking. Through all this, he is not only a loveable lover,
but a friend as well.
While on my January retreat, my retreat director suggested making two
lists; one for all the things I loved about Jesus and one for all the things
I did not like about him. I spent the entire day praying and contemplating
this list, and finally came up with 51 items on the positive side and only
one on the negative. In the plus column were such things as his love for me,
his willingness to forgive, etc. But it also included things like
Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the 1812 Overture, and Barber's Adagio for Strings,
among others. I love Jesus for the color blue, for putting nerve-endings in
all the right places, for dogs, star-bloated skies, loving family and friends.
When it came to the negative side, the solitary entry was that Jesus, at
times, can be a real pain! Why? Because he does not allow me to judge or
hold grudges against those who hurt me. He does not let me sit and wallow in
self-pity. He is constantly at me about things like "growth", and
"conversion", and "service". Very annoying! Yet if it was not for these
very things that I find annoying, I do not believe I could truly enjoy the
other 51 I find so wonderfully appealing about "my Love...my friend", my
Jesus. 6:3 -- I belong to my love, and my love to me.
There was once a small boy who decided to build a toy boat. He found
the choicest piece of wood and lovingly carved and hollowed out the hull and
sanded it smooth. He next fashioned a mast, attached a fine sail, painted
the boat the most beautiful color he could find, then went down to the river
to test his new creation.
Squatting down, the boy gently placed the boat on the water and gave it
a slight tap. The wind caught the sail and it billowed out, sending the boat
gliding across the face of the water. The sight filled the boy with delight.
But a smile of joy turned to a look of dismay as he watched the boat sail
farther and farther away from him. He had failed to attach a line to the
boat, so there was no way to bring it back. Heartbroken, the boy wept and
returned home.
A few days later, while passing a used toy store, the boy looked in the
window. There, in the back, almost hidden by other toys, was his boat! With
great excitement the boy entered the store and asked the owner to give him
the boat in the window because it belonged to him. The man calmly said he
would gladly sell him the boat, but he could not simply give his merchandise
away.
So the boy began to work, and the money he earned went toward retrieving
his prized toy. When at last he had accumulated enough money, he returned to
the store and bought his boat back. Upon leaving, the boy was heard to say,
"You're mine, you're twice my boat. You're mine once because I made you and
mine once because I paid for you."
There are many people who reach out to us. Some want our time, others
want our money. Still others desire us as a means to satisfy them physically
or emotionally. But only Jesus desires us because he made us out of love and
paid for us with his blood, shed for love of us. "I belong to my Love, and
my Love belongs to me." The truth of this remains today. The one to whom I
give my love and time and energy and life has a claim on me. And if the one
who receives my love gives me his love and time and energy and life in
return, then we truly possess each other. With Jesus, the possession is not
a controlling or clinging, ultimately destructive possession. He has proven
worthy of my love and trust. He has proven himself reliable. When you
belong to Jesus, he enables you to see yourself as you are, to claim both the
light and shadows of your existence. Jesus enables you to be whole, hence
holy.
This verse is interesting from the fact that the Beloved's eyes are
simply described, not compared to anything as in the other verses. In her
translation, poet Chiana Bloch renders verse 5 as, "Your eyes! Turn them
away for they dazzle me." Why? Why does the gaze from the Beloved's eyes
"dazzle" enough to "assault", "torment", "overwhelm" the Lover? Could it be
that, in peering into the eyes of one committed to us and our wellbeing, the
eyes of one who knows us and loves us because of, and in spite of, this knowledge, we glimpse, if but for a moment, God gazing back at us? That there is
more than a little of the Divine involved in the love between two people?
That it takes courage to love another and allow ourselves to be vulnerable
enough to be loved by them? I firmly believe the answer to all these questions
is a resounding "YES!"
Now, this "yes" opens up a new set of questions. Do we have the courage
to love and be loved by Jesus? To look into his eyes so as to truthfully see
ourselves mirrored in the vision of one who intimately knows us and loves us
because of, and in spite of, what he sees? Are we willing to be vulnerable
enough to look into the eyes of God and accept what we find? What we will
find there is a human being, talented and broken, strong and fragile, sacred
and scared, blessed and filled with potential for life and love and growth.
In short, we will find the Beloved of Jesus Christ.
The male lover proclaims that his lover is unique and uniquely his, a
proclamation that Jesus makes regarding each one of us.
Consider the following: In the entire history of this planet, there has
never been, nor ever will be, another like you. No one has ever viewed the
world like you do, no one has ever been given your particular talents and
insights. No one has been given your job to accomplish in this life. And
should you fail, no one will come behind you and complete the task. The very
fact that you exist at all comes from a choice made by God. Your being here
is no accident, no afterthought, no spur of the moment whim. From the
beginning, even before time, God chose to create you! God chose to give you
all that you possess, including your sexuality, out of undying love. That
has always been part of her plan for the universe.
The love Jesus bears for you is also unique, never before seen on the
earth. His passion for you burns with an intensity that can only be
fulfilled by your decision to freely and intensely love him in return.
To belong to another, to have a lover claim that I belong to him and he
belongs to me is something truly sweet to hear, especially when such claims
are rooted in mutual respect, free from possessiveness and control. Jesus
desires to possess us, but this is because of the truth St. Augustine said,
"Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Jesus, my Lover, is the
source of rest and fulfillment. He is the source of my joy and the
destination of my wandering, stumbling steps. The love I give him can be
given by no one else but me. And he has been waiting for my love, and yours,
since before the world began. Isn't it about time the wait was over?
It seems to me that "the fields" here has a double meaning, one flowing
from the other.
The fields are a place of seclusion, away from the noise and activity of
the city. The fields are a place of solitude and silence into which the
Lover is leading his Beloved. There. together, far from prying eyes, and in
freedom of expression, he will bestow the gift of his love. The gift of his
love. Jesus' love is not something owed to any of us. It is an expression of
deliberate choice to love us and enfold us in that love. Here he gives a
gentle but firm command to "Come, my Love". Again, our Lover is impatient
with desire, as all lovers grow impatient when they wish to make love to
their beloved; to ravish them. In the fields of peaceful solitude we are
ravished, for in that solitude we finally hear the words of love Jesus wishes
to speak.
Yet solitude is no easy commodity. Like anything worthwhile it must
come from effort. We spend our days in noise and commotion, not all of our
making, but enough is self-made that we have some control over it. For our
Lover to be heard, we must learn to be comfortable with silence which,
itself, speaks. Silence commands us to "be still and know I am God."
Silence reminds us that there is much we have to learn and much we will never
fully understand. Silence teaches us that we are not in control of all
things, and helps us to know the difference between what can and cannot be
changed. Silence is the bed in which Jesus makes passionate love to us, if
only we allow it. That much is in our hands. We can choose to clutter and
clog our lives, or we can choose to "let him enter, the King of Glory."
But no one can stay in the field of silence. There is also the field of
the human condition, the field of human need of which we are all a part. If
lovers remain in bed and never allow their closeness to bear fruit in the
world beyond the bedroom, all they have participated in is sexual gymnastics.
If we are loved by our Lover, Jesus, and fail to have that love bear fruit
in service to those in need, we are a barren tree, content with imagining it
has beautiful green leaves and luscious fruit. Adapting St. James, "Love,
without works, is dead".
We have known bliss. What are we doing to alleviate the gloom? We have
been stung by prejudice. What are we doing to educate? We have known the
kiss of the Beloved. How has our love and concern kissed those left by the
wayside of society's thoughts? It is not enough to receive the Lover's gifts
of love. We must become his gift of love to the world.
What do people think of me? In the long run it does not make any
difference, particularly in the spiritual life. What matters is to enter
into what God thinks about you: "And God looked at everything he had made,
and saw that it was very good." There are instances where coming out fully
can do more damage than good. But a gay or lesbian person must come out to
themselves and acknowledge that self before the God who bestowed the gift in
the first place. Then we can embrace our Lover as the gay and lesbian lovers
he desires. Ireneus said that "the glory of God is human beings fully
alive." Coming out to ourselves and to God is the most important step we
take, for it is not only a coming out of the tomb of the closet, but a
stepping into the truth.
The seal spoken of here was a sign of ownership, of possession. Here
the Lover wishes to be set upon the heart and arm of the Beloved as a sign to
all to whom it is she belongs.
Heart and arm, love and strength, possessed by both. To be owned by
Jesus is to be the possession of Love itself, not simply love, but a love
"strong as death" and a "passion relentless as Sheol," the place of the dead
that beckons to all. It is love that called you into being and keeps you
alive. It is love that opened its hands to receive nails, bared its body to
whips and spittle, and crushed death and fear into the dust.
Jesus is a passionate Lover who can never cease loving us, no matter how
deep the flood of self-hatred nor imposing the torrent of prejudice. His is
a love that does not, cannot, be won or purchased, because his love has
already been spent ... for you. You do not have to impress Jesus or try to put
on a mask. You cannot play games with him. Well, really you can, but
emptiness and contempt are the only prizes gained.
"Set me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm" can also be
Jesus' call to us. In a real sense he wants to be possessed by us, to find a
place in our heart and in our arms, fragile though they are. Possession yes,
but in the end it is more a question of union, one with the other. When we
are fixed securely upon the heart of Jesus, when he is within the depths of
our heart, then truly his left arm is under our head and we are embraced with
his right. We are surrounded by his love, forever warmed and strengthened.
Even the power of death cannot change his love. Not just physical death, but
the death we choose when we wander off, looking to lie in the beds of other
lovers and find comfort in another's embrace: the embrace of greed, lust,
selfishness, self-pity , anger and hatred. But their seals are those of
Sheol, of emptiness, of nothing. Only our Lover Jesus, by kissing us with
the kisses of his mouth, can give us what we desire most: wholeness,
completeness, meaning and purpose, and the knowledge that there is one in
whose eyes we are beautiful and to whom we give delight.
The vineyard here refers to the Lover's selfhood, superficially her
sexuality. The vineyard, which she earlier failed to guard, is now in the
hands of her Beloved. Both lovers have referred to the vineyard as theirs.
Here the metaphor provides a sense of closure.
In a sense, we have been given our very self to cultivate and tend like
a vineyard ripe with the possibility of refreshing wine.
The feeling behind "I tend my own vineyard" has the feel of good ol'
American self-reliance about it. Chiana Bloch translates this verse as "My
vineyard is my own," and as such it must be protected and nurtured.
When I give a gift to someone, I know that, deep down, since it is now
theirs, they are free to treat the gift any way they wish, although I will be
more pleased if I see them enjoying it through the proper use and care. We
are gifted in so many ways, but the most difficult to embrace for gay and
lesbian folks is our sexuality since it is under constant attack by those who
do not, or refuse to, understand us. We can respond to the attacks in two
ways. We can adopt a childish "I'll-show-you" attitude where everything and
anything goes, thus ultimately and dangerously selling ourselves cheaply.
"Who are they to label me as disordered, my affections unnatural, my
sexuality as second-rate, something that falls short?" There is such a thing
as righteous anger, and it is perfectly "normal" to feel angry when a
God-given gift is belittled or misunderstood. But anger alone does little
good. It can, in fact, act like a leech, sapping strength and vision from us.
So what other option do we have? The option that has been held out
throughout these reflections ... Jesus! After all, he is the one who has
gifted us with our sexuality. Who better to help us use it in a life-giving,
life-affirming, responsible manner? He knows what it is like to be
misunderstood, to be put down. He has tasted the injustice of others,
therefore he can do more than sympathize with his wounded gay sisters and
brothers. He can help us through the anger and fear so as to claim our full
personhood. He can, and will, walk with us through our pain and participate
with our joys. He can, and will, cradle us in our loneliness, caress us in
our need. He can, and will, heal our wounds and increase our courage and
strength. He can broaden our vision and enlarge our hearts to embrace, not
only our fellow outcasts, but also return love and mercy to those who hate
us, lie about us, who are blinded by their fear of us.
To truly be lovers of Jesus we must conduct ourselves as lovers of
Jesus, as those who have experienced his love-making, been drawn in his
footsteps, and have been called "beautiful", "my delight", my love", and "my friend" by him whose body forever bears the marks of his passionate love for
us.
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The Song of Songs : A New Translation With an Introduction and Commentary Ariel Bloch (Commentary), Chana Bloch (Commentary) Levi Ben Gershom
Other Articles By Tom Yeshua:
Part 1: "My Love, How You Delight Me":
Part 2: "My Love, How You Delight Me":
Part 3: "My Love, How You Delight Me":
Also In This Issue:
Called According to God's Purpose
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