
A Mediation on Song of Songs 2:8-14
Sometimes Christianity doesn’t seem real. We can say something profound about it like, God is preparing our souls for love. But it doesn’t feel like it most of the time. It feels like I am a mediocre friend, at best, and that I am not doing enough for the church. Or for my family. I look at my young adult daughters and son and think I haven’t taught them or shown them enough about the wonder of who God is and his love for us and focused too much on how Christians behave. I catch myself being critical of my husband. I miss him when he’s not with me, and then I pick at him when he is. That’s not loving. And it feels like I’m always failing in my prayer life.
Not good enough. That seems like real life sometimes. A lot of the time.
I know all the right things to speak into this. Because I really am a Christian. But we each have the winters of our souls to deal with. What I just shared is both embarrassing and dismal. But it is not the worst of my winters. This is the polished confession version.
At this point in the Song of Songs, the woman just adjured us not to stir up or awaken love until the proper time. Sometimes we try too hard to force things, and others we are just dreary and languishing in winter. Our senses are dulled. There’s no grass or blooms to smell. We don’t hear the birds singing or the voice of children playing outside. We don’t feel the sun on our skin. Everything we taste is canned or imported. Likewise, the promises of God can seem so far off or disconnected from real life. They sound great, but right now you are trying to finish your education and start your career before your car breaks down again. Or maybe you are too overwhelmed by the loss of a relationship to sense anything hopeful. Whether we are caring for loved ones, aching in loneliness, coping and fighting an illness, just slogging through the mundanity of everyday stresses, or striving to make a record of all our accomplishments and “living” on social media, real life can rob us of our curiosity and imaginations.
But what if it is exactly our curiosity and imaginations that need to be awakened to see and sense real life? Here is something curious: the woman gives this adjuration not to stir up love or awaken it until the proper time three times in the Song, and each occasion it is immediately followed with a change of scenery, awakening, and rising up! What if we need reminding to listen and look because spring is rolling in? Here comes the sun!
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