Love, Part 2
Hi all, sorry for the delay in getting this up. Readership is up for the day, which tells me a few of you were checking in on my promise to post every 2-3 days. Sorry. I did intend to post yesterday, but the only chance I had to work on it was after 10 p.m. (no internet).
So… here we are at Wednesday. And the rather unedited continued thoughts on a topic I began a couple weeks ago and then (intentionally) left alone for a few weeks.
Last time I left off somewhere along the lines of “It’s gotta be more like falling in love…” (Jason Gray). More specifically, that this whole experience of Christianity should be the experience not of religious behaviors, but of falling in love. We are meant to be divine worshipers– lovers. As G. K. Chesterton succinctly directed, “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.” So what does that mean?
Okay, you may not know what it is to be a lover. You may not know what it is to be passionate. You may hate emotionalism. But I’m pretty sure you know what it is– or could be– to fall madly, helplessly, turn-your-life-upside down in love. And that’s what we are offered as Christians. Settle for anything less– anything that doesn’t make you ready to give all and lose all for Him— and you’re missing out.
But I’m guessing that as I talk about this, some of you are squirming at every mention of “falling in love” with the God of the universe. Yeah, put simply like that it kind of makes me squirm, too. But I’m not talking about the sticky Valentine sentimentality (for which, yes, I am too well known) symbolized by some pretty little “heart” or other—what Charles Lamb called “that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and fears” that causes silly maidens to tremble at any sound at their doors on Valentine’s Day, in hope and dread that it be the postman carrying a love letter. No—much as I sometimes resonate with that Feb. 14th hopefulness, and much as I occasionally enjoy employing the three-cornered exponent as a symbol of my affection and fidelity, this kind of love is not what I have in mind when I talk about us and Christ. Nor am I speaking of the kind of life-long love Shakespeare was such a famed promoter of—“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the Remover to remove. … Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.” (Sonnet 116. And for the record, yes, those are some of my favorite lines in all of English poetry.) Much as I highly esteem this kind of love, this is not what I’m talking about for us Christians, or Us the Church. I am not one of those, like the authors of some popular Christian worship songs, who can talk about Heaven meeting earth “like a sloppy wet kiss,” or can inform Christ that His “fragrance is intoxicating in a secret place” without feeling a brief surge of nausea (although there are other lines of both those songs that I do love).
However, I do think this kind of human love can (and should) be an image for us of the kind of passionate worship we, as Christians, and We, as the Church, are meant and created to live in. We each know, if not in fact, at least in theory, what it is like to have the heart so consumed by love that the life follows. Even in our intensely shallow, not-really-love-but-something-called-by-the-same-name-consumed culture, there’s a disproportionate value placed on lasting, dedicated relationships. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, and yet most people still talk about “finding that person I can spend the rest of my life with.” By the time most youths in America reach the age I’m at now, they’ve done plenty of casual “sleeping around.” But the large majority of those youths would be heart-broken, bitter, and angry if they found out their current girl-/boyfriend, partner, or spouse were cheating on them. Every one of us (the sane ones, anyway—the ones, too, who would be considered sane by their neighbors) looks for a love that we can hold onto forever, dedicate ourselves to, and find lasting joy in. We also want a love we are willing to risk everything for. We all want to be Othello, so overjoyed in the affection of his Desdemona that his “soul hath her content so absolute / That not another comfort like to this / Succeeds in unknown fate.” And we all want to be Desdemona, confident in the hope that even perfect “loves and comforts should increase / Even as our days do grow!” We, too, want a love that we would be willing to stake (or lose) our reputation over. We want a love for which we would face all the world’s attacks, whether of the Venetian Senate (as in the case of Othello) or friends at school or temptations from within, and all the disparagement, and all the distrust, and all the fear. We want a love so fierce it’s terrifying and incredible. We want a love so pure, so constant, so true, so entire, that it truly is our “soul’s joy.”
So. When was the last time I seriously looked to find my soul’s joy in the purest, most constant, truest, most entire love—the One who is love? And when was the last time I put as much energy and effort into my relationship with the Christ as I swear I would with that special someone? And when was the last time I allowed my love for Him to be all-consuming, directing my every action and guiding my every decision? Would I face the Senate or the Sadduccees and boldly proclaim my love for Him? Young college-somethings who have finally found that special someone can’t stop showing off that person and talking about him. Shouldn’t I be showing off and talking about the God of the universe, who, incomprehensively to my little human mind, has “poured out His heart to romance a world that was torn all apart” (Downhere, “How Many Kings”)?
More on this to come.
Contagious Passion 
Enjoyed reading this. You write well:)
Well, thanks. 🙂 I enjoy writing greatly… and I have found there are a lot of dots that it’s taken me much longer to connect than I’m proud of… so I’m hoping to help connect them for other people a little sooner. 🙂
What if we talk of this Divine Love in terms of longing? Perhaps God intends to engage our eternal longing for the consummation of our souls in the conflagration of His holy wholeness? See? This topic engages so much of me that all I can do is use strings of words that mean nothing except by implication!
I think of loving God in terms of such intense longing for eternal communion with the Creator that no earthly language can express it. Though, Augustine came mighty close:
“tu excitas ut laudare te delectet, quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te.”
“Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”
Tim… I rather agree with you, and guess what? I was going to use that very Augustine quote soon. 🙂 Remember that most marvelous book we read in Germany– Legacy of Sovereign Joy? Reread that this year. Sooo good.