Scripture Focus: Song of Songs 5.6-7
6 I opened for my beloved, 
but my beloved had left; he was gone. 
My heart sank at his departure. 
I looked for him but did not find him. 
I called him but he did not answer. 
7 The watchmen found me 
as they made their rounds in the city. 
They beat me, they bruised me; 
they took away my cloak, 
those watchmen of the walls! 

Reflection: Love is Not a Panacea
By John Tillman

After the consummation of their marriage, the beloved tells us of a frightening and disturbing dream.

Some interpreters feel this vision shows a cooling of the relationship after the marriage. The beloved hesitates to open to her lover for trivial reasons—not wanting to dirty her feet or retrieve her robe. In dreamlike fashion, once she does rouse herself to the door, he is gone. Then, searching for him in the streets she is harmed by the very watchmen who helped her search for her lover in a previous passage.

We should be careful analogizing the woman’s hesitation to mean indifference or sin on her part. These passages have been abused by some who interpret this as the woman refusing sexual relations with her husband and suffering the consequences. Women have often been harmed by misreadings of texts related to sexuality. Texts like this one are too often twisted to teach women that being sexually available anything less than one-hundred percent of the time will place blame for infidelity in their lap. This is poor reading of the text, to say the least. Why would we interpret sin on her part for being slow to rise and not sin on the man’s part for being absent in the first place? 

The passage doesn’t seem intent on blaming one partner or the other, but it does seem to imply that even between the most loving of couples there can be problems and difficult times. The beloved’s dream shows us that she fears loss, indifference, and separation. She struggles against difficult obstacles and unexpected challenges. “The course of true love never did run smooth” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream I.i.:137)

This realistic note in the midst of what is, at times, a near-erotic love poem is striking. This grounds the more lofty passages and short circuits any thought that life and love will always reach the heights of pleasure previously depicted. It cautions those who would enter marriage or sexual love flippantly or in naivete.

Love, especially sexual love, is not a panacea. There is a reason marriage vows often include “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health.” Stay married long enough and worse will come. Poorer will come. Sickness will come. What you do then is a truer consummation of your love than what occurs on the wedding night.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. — Psalm 116.8

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Song of Songs 5 (Listen – 2:43)
Psalm 119:121-144 (Listen – 15:14)

Read more about You’re The Top
In an image-obsessed culture, how do we healthily praise each other…process body image issues…outrageous cultural expectations of beauty?

https://theparkforum.org/843-acres/youre-the-to

Read more about Hitting the Mark of Reconciliation
The gospel has the power to resurrect dead relationships just as it has the power to resurrect our souls and our physical bodies.

Scripture Focus: Song of Songs 4.2, 4
2 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, 
coming up from the washing. 
Each has its twin; 
not one of them is alone.

4 Your neck is like the tower of David, 
built with courses of stone; 
on it hang a thousand shields, 
all of them shields of warriors. 

Reflection: You’re The Top
By John Tillman

The abundant praise of the bride uses over the top, lavish language with references that don’t always land for modern readers.

It’s not that unusual to compare our loved ones to things our culture values. Cole Porter’s 1934 song, “You’re The Top” is one example. The duet between complimentary lovers contains cultural references that might be enigmatic for today’s listeners.

You’re the top.
You’re a Waldorf salad.
You’re the top.
You’re a Berlin ballad.

The “Waldorf” salad was created in 1896 at the original Waldorf Hotel in New York City and swept the country as a new sensation and mark of refinement. Modern listeners might wonder why Germany’s capital is known for ballads, but the lyrics refer to famous American songwriter, Irving Berlin.

If we have difficulty deciphering metaphors written in our native tongue less than a century ago, we should have humility with older cultural references, written in a language we don’t speak. We don’t have to understand them completely, however, to realize every phrase carries the writer’s highest praise.

Who can live up to giving or receiving these praises? Who can live up to being called by Cole Porter, “the tower of Pisa,” or by Solomon, “the Tower of David”? Can we praise our own lovers in this way? Can we accept praise such as this? 

In my own life, I have a habit of pushing away compliments, especially about my appearance or talents. I drop my eyes, shake my head, and say, “no,” or I deflect with self-deprecation. Porter does this too. After saying his lover is the “smile on the Mona Lisa” he says, “I’m a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop”

In an image-obsessed culture, how do we healthily praise each other? How do we process body image issues and outrageous cultural expectations of beauty? Balancing humility and honesty while receiving compliments is complex. Neither self-inflated pride nor self-effacing despair are healthy.

We are liable to fail, not only in words we attempt to say but in attempting to live up to what our lovers say in return or what we feel our lovers expect.

Grace for ourselves and our loved ones is required. We must learn not only to love but to be loved and celebrated.

Leaning on and using the poetry and praise of others can help. Perhaps we can begin to say and accept from one another, “You’re the top.”

Music: “You’re the Top” performed by Sutton Foster and Collin Donnell

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
For who is God, but the Lord? Who is the Rock, except our God? — Psalm 18.32

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Song of Songs 4 (Listen – 2:46)
Psalm 119:97-120 (Listen – 15:14)

Read more about Sexuality and Spirituality
The Song should encourage us to apply holiness to our intimate sexual relationships.

Read more about Love Guided Thoughts
Oh what a happy spring of meditation, is a rooted, predominant love of God! Love him strongly, and you cannot forget him.

Scripture Focus: Song of Songs 1.15-16
15 How beautiful you are, my darling!
    Oh, how beautiful!
    Your eyes are doves.
16 How handsome you are, my beloved!
    Oh, how charming!
    And our bed is verdant.

Reflection: Sexuality and Spirituality
By Erin Newton

No other book in the Bible has elicited more diverging interpretations than the Song of Solomon. Also referred to as the “Song of Songs,” the title means the greatest of all songs.

Most interpretations are either allegorical or literal. The allegorical interpretation views the poetry as a depiction of the love between God and his people. Each body part mentioned correlates to some spiritual or geographical meaning. Throughout the Bible, the relationship between God and his people utilizes the language of marriage (and adultery).

The literal interpretation views the poem as a dialogue between two human lovers (ex: Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter). Some highlight the Ancient Near Eastern background connecting love songs to festivals.

Ellen Davis offers a complementary view into the Song which attempts to utilize both types of interpretation. “For a holistic understanding of our own humanity suggests that our religious capacity is linked with an awareness of our own sexuality.” This view balances the allegorical imagery of covenantal love with God and the marital love of two people. The Song should encourage us to apply holiness to our intimate sexual relationships. The Song also encourages us to keep our intimate spiritual relationship with God unadulterated. 

It can be difficult in our culture to imagine God’s love for his people as equivalent to the intimacy of lovers. We can barely talk about basic bodily functions without raising a warning flag that such content could be explicit. Likewise, our sexuality has become so taboo we have divorced the concept from our spirituality.

Our culture struggles with defining love. Ideas revolve around physical pleasure and reciprocal benefits. Love in our day is rarely long-lasting. Love is often self-centered and operates on a quid pro quo scenario.

Yet this poem opens with each lover praising the other. The attention of the lover is not to gratify the hormonal urge of the moment but to see each other in the fullness of one’s worth. You, as you are, are worthy of love. Love begins with praise.

In this way, Ellen Davis says that true love seeks to move beyond the self-absorption that is common in our culture. This same movement away from self and toward adoration of another is one that we ought to seek in our relationship with God. Selfless fascination with someone is only a small glimpse of the praise and adoration due to a far more worthy God.

Additional Reading: For more on Ellen Davis’s reading check out this article from The Bible Project. 

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Know this; The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. — Psalm 100.2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Song of Songs 1 (Listen – 2:16)
Psalm 119:25-48 (Listen – 15:14)

This Weekend’s Readings
Song of Songs 2 (Listen – 2:15), Psalm 119:49-72 (Listen – 15:14)
Song of Songs 3 (Listen – 1:48), Psalm 119:73-96 (Listen – 15:14)

Read more about Setting a New Standard
No matter what culture’s moving needle says is moral, what matters to Jesus is God’s design.

Read more about Beyond Consent
When the only sexual ethic that exists is “consent” a lot of evil, manipulation, deception, and abuse gets a free pass.