Love Song of the Soul

In the CAC’s Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, James Finley and Mirabai Starr describe how the Song of Songs in the Old Testament expresses the soul’s longing for God as well as God’s longing for us. Core faculty member James Finley says:  

The Song of Songs is one of the poetic works of the Wisdom literature in the Old Testament, along with the Torah and the Prophets. It’s a poem about two people who are very erotically and intensely in love with each other. They also have a deep reverence for each other, which is the gift of such love. The text’s inclusion in the Bible is interesting because it makes no mention of God.

The scholar Bernard McGinn points out that there’s an understanding of this poem that is relevant to faith communities. The Jewish community viewed it as a poem of God’s love for the Jewish people and of the people’s love as a community for God, but it’s also about each Jewish person’s love for God and God’s love for each person. That understanding carried over into the Christian tradition, where it’s read as God’s love for the church as well as God’s love for each Christian and their love for God. The central imagery reveals a deepening interplay of communion between God and humanity, collectively and personally.

CAC guest faculty member Mirabai Starr continues: 

The Song of Songs is our soul’s quintessential blueprint. We often have this sense that to be born is to be separated from our source. The path of this life, then, is a path of return and homecoming—and it’s characterized in many ways by longing, yearning, and remembering in our bones that we come from Love. The desire beyond all other desires is to return to Love. That spiritual longing is often expressed or mirrored in our human relationships. I don’t see that as a problem. Our human relationships are not illusions that stand in for the real thing, the spiritual longing of our spiritual selves. Rather, our human relationships are the field on which this love dance plays out in this life.

Finley concludes:

Anyone who’s ever been smitten by love doesn’t need to explain why the Song of Songs is sacred. In other words, love’s the best thing going. It’s way up there with hummingbirds and sunsets. It’s one of God’s better ideas, because a life rich with love is a life rich with meaning. God is the infinity of love; therefore, our love for each other is an incarnate manifestation of that infinite love, which is incarnate in our love for each other.

The Song of Songs expresses this love song of the heart. The rhythms of the poet’s voice are the rhythms of love itself. The language is so poetic because it’s evocatively incarnating the nonlinear realizations of love. That’s why, when we read Scripture this way, it affects us at such a deep level.

The Holy of Holies

Monday, May 4, 2025

If a dream of God is a delicate thing, how much more so a dream of God the Lover.
—Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God

The Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis shares the history of the Song of Songs’ inclusion in the Bible: 

Here is a book that barely (no pun intended) made it into the Bible, and with good reason. It never mentions God, at least not explicitly, and it mentions a lot of other things we would not expect to find in the Bible. The scriptural status of the Song of Songs is so questionable that the Talmud actually records the great debate…. It was the declamation of Rabbi Akiba, the great teacher, scholar, and martyr of early Judaism, that finally carried the day:

Heaven forbid! No Jew ever questioned the sanctity of the Song of Songs; for all the world is not worth the day when the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies! [1] …

Akiba’s view of the Song’s unique holiness carried not only that day, but well over a millennium of biblical interpretation among both Jews and Christians. The eight chapters of the Song of Songs have generated more commentary than almost any other book of the Bible…. In the thirteenth century, Bernard [of Clairvaux] wrote eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, and he never got beyond chapter three, verse one!

In recent years, however, this tide of interpretation has turned…. The present consensus is that the Song of Songs is a celebration of human sexuality that was included in the canon of scripture by mistake, because the ancient rabbis thought it was about the love of God and Israel….

If the Song is solely a celebration of human love, then nowhere within the covers of the Bible is there a truly happy story about God and Israel (or God and the Church) in love…. If the Song has nothing to do with the story of God and Israel after all, then there is nowhere to turn to hear one partner say, “I love you,” and the other answer right back, “Yes, yes; I love you, too.” For this is the only place in the Bible where there is a dialogue of love.

Davis describes how the Song of Songs overcomes the separation that began in Genesis between God, humanity, and the earth: 

The poet of the Song has a dream, and in that dream all the ruptures that occurred in Eden are repaired…. Following carefully and imaginatively where the words of the Song lead, we can share the poet’s and God’s dream of the original harmony of creation restored…. A woman and a man, equally powerful, are lost in admiration of each other—or more accurately, in admiration they truly find themselves and each other. And the natural world rejoices with them.

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Individual Reflection

Where does the two-way dialogue of love — “I love you” answered by “I love you, too” — feel most alive or most absent in you right now?

Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Starr says our human relationships are “the field on which this love dance plays out.” What does that stir as you sit with your own?
2. Davis writes that the Song’s poet dreams the ruptures of Eden repaired. What in you longs toward that dream?
3. What would it mean to receive the Song of Songs as written to you — not about someone else’s love, but God’s love song to your own soul?

Morning Has Broken – Cat Stevens

Father Richard teaches that a practice of contemplation carries us into the “Big River” of God’s love, enabling us to release our fears.  

Grace and mercy teach us that we are all much larger than the good or bad stories we tell about ourselves or one another. Our small, fear-based stories are usually less than half true, and therefore not really “true” at all. They’re usually based on hurts and unconscious agendas that persuade us to see and judge things in a very selective way. They’re not the whole You, not the Great You. It’s not the great river and therefore not where Life can really happen. No wonder the Spirit is described as “flowing water” and as “a spring inside you” (John 4:10–14) or as a “river of life” (Revelation 22:1–2).  

I believe that faith might be precisely that ability to trust the Big River of God’s providential love, which is to trust its visible embodiment (the Christ), the flow (the Holy Spirit), and the source itself (the Creator). This is a divine process that we don’t have to change, coerce, or improve. We just need to allow it and enjoy it. That takes immense confidence in God, especially when we’re hurting. Often, we feel ourselves get panicky and quickly want to make things right. We lose our ability to be present and go up into our heads and start obsessing. At that point we’re not really feeling or experiencing things in our hearts and bodies. We’re oriented toward making things happen, trying to push or even create our own river. Yet the Big River is already flowing through us and each of us is only one small part of it. 

Faith does not need to push the river precisely because it is able to trust that there is a river. The river is flowing; we are already in it. This is probably the deepest meaning of “divine providence.” So do not be afraid. We have been proactively given the Spirit by a very proactive God.  

Ask yourself regularly, “What am I afraid of? Does it matter? Will it matter in the great scheme of things? Is it worth holding on to?” We have to ask whether it is fear that keeps us from loving. Grace will lead us into such fears and emptiness, and grace alone can fill them, if we are willing to stay in the void. We mustn’t engineer an answer too quickly. We mustn’t get settled too fast. We all want to manufacture an answer to take away our anxiety and settle the dust. To stay in God’s hands, to trust, means that we usually have to let go of our attachments to feelings—which are going to pass away anyway. People of deep faith develop a high tolerance for ambiguity and come to recognize that it is only the small self that needs certitude or perfect order all the time. The true self is perfectly at home in the River of Mystery.

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, rev. ed. (Crossroad Publishing, 2003), 142–144.

Jesus Calling -Sarah Young

    Come to Me with all your weaknesses: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Rest in the comfort of My Presence, remembering that nothing is impossible with Me. 

    Pry your mind away from your problems so you can focus your attention on Me. Recall that I am able to do immeasurably more than all you ask or imagine. Instead of trying to direct Me to do this and that, seek to attune yourself to what I am already doing.

    When anxiety attempts to wedge its way into your thoughts, remind yourself that I am your Shepherd. The bottom line is that I am taking care of you; therefore, you needn’t be afraid of anything. Rather than trying to maintain control over your life, abandon yourself to My will. Though this may feel frightening–even dangerous, the safest place to be is in My will.

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Luke 1:37 NLT

37 For the word of God will never fail.”

Daily devotional book

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NLT)

20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21 Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

Additional insight regarding Ephesians 3:20-21: This doxology – prayer of praise to God – ends Part 1 of Ephesians. In the first section, Paul describes the timeless role of the church. In Part 2 (chapters 4-6), he will explain how church members should live in order to bring about the unity God wants. As in most of his books, Paul first lays a doctrinal foundation and then makes practical applications of the truths he has presented.

John Chaffee Five on Friday

1.

“Lord, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to look for any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.”

– A Prayer from St. Ignatius of Loyola

For several months now, I have been working through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Ignatius was a 16th-century Spanish infantryman who left his sword and shield behind after taking a cannonball to the legs.  During his recovery, they had to rebreak his legs to help them to heal better, and it left him with a limp for the rest of his life.  These were some of the most formative years of his life, and during his life, he founded the Jesuits and wrote the Spiritual Exercises (something like a military-style manual for spiritual formation).

Over the years, I have found Ignatius of Loyola’s life and wisdom to be quite helpful.  This prayer has recentered me more than once, and is doing so for me again this week.

2.

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.“

– Saul of Tarsus in Romans 6:7-9

Just before Easter, I was able to go to St. Paul’s Basilica in Rome to pray, where the Apostle’s bones are buried beneath the altar.

Actually, it is more that I tried to pray.  I couldn’t quite do it.

Not because of some lack of reverence, but because of some surplus of it.

Something within me glitched as I knelt in that massive church.

I could not comprehend what was in the bone box right in front of me.

The bones of St. Paul?  Really?

Sure, there is plausible deniability, but if there is deniability, then there is also a plausible possibility!

I had studied the life and letters of Paul for literal decades of my life.  I was even given the opportunity to learn ancient Greek in seminary and read about his life and letters in their original language.  What a privilege!

Since that day of visiting St. Paul’s bones, I read his words in a different way.  I can’t quite pinpoint it, but his words now resonate as if on a new frequency for me.

It is fascinating how ancient words we know so well can suddenly take on a new freshness we could not make happen ourselves.

3.

“The vast majority of people walking away from Christianity in America are not rejecting the person and work of Jesus.  They are rejecting faulty biblical interpretations that lead to bigotry, oppression, and marginalization.  This rejection isn’t unchristian.  It is Christlike.”

– Zach Lambert, Texan Pastor of Restore Church

I have said this in other ways, but this is pretty well to the point.

It is actually a form of devotion to true Christianity to reject and walk away from a false one.

4.

“Emotionally immature people have a poor sense of personal history and resist being accountable for their past actions or future consequences.”

– Lindsay C. Gibson in Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Thanks, Mark.  This book you bought for me (and for Mike) is kind of rocking me.

Fortunately, I believe my parents were/are emotionally mature and healthy people who did a great job in our household.

That said, this book is doing much to help me understand people in general.  As someone who pastors and gives spiritual direction, anything that helps me better understand how we cope and how we respond to one another is enormously helpful.

The human person is infinitely complex, and with so many nuances and exceptions to the rule that it can be disorienting, and so I admit that a book like this is enlightening.

When I see immaturity in myself or in others, it irks me terribly.

I firmly believe that a healthy Christian spirituality helps us to “clean up, grow up, wake up, and show up” to our own lives.  Authentic faith helps us take accountability for ourselves and puts us back “on the hook” to become the best versions of ourselves.

I firmly believe that we have an ethical and spiritual responsibility to those around us to be the most virtuous, whole, and loving versions of ourselves.  The world already has enough trauma from our general immaturity and vices that I actually believe Jesus is in favor of whatever helps us to grow more fully into human beings who help one another to heal and be well.

5.

“The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre- 
To be redeemed from fire by fire.”

– TS Eliot, British Poet

It is either one fire or another.  That is the choice.

Do I want the fires of my own self-created hell?  Do I want to be in the midst of the conflagration of my own vices?

Or…

Would I prefer the purifying fires of my own conscience leading me into repentance and into reformation/transformation?

Pyre or pyre?

Will I consent to the fires of God’s purifying Love that will redeem me?

Or, will I avoid that holy fire and choose to be painfully subject to the terrifying flames of my own self-destruction?

The question is not, “Will I be burned?”

The question is, “Which fire do I consent to be burned by?  The holy one or the unholy one?”