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This writing I Dedicate to my Beloved. I thank God daily that you are in my life, and I in your life, always. May our Love encourage others to find God in their relationships with their beloved, their love, and to know more truly that all Love is God.
Wisdom Words
Look into my eyes - you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart - search your soul
And when you find me there you'll search no more
Look into your heart - you will find
There's nothin' there to hide
Take me as I am - take my life
I would give it all - I would sacrifice
There's no love - like your love
And no other - could give more love
There's nowhere - unless you're there
All the time - all the way
Chorus
Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you
Oh - you can't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
I would fight for you - I'd lie for you
Walk the wire for you - ya I'd die for you
Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you
*Lyrics by Bryan Adams
Our souls are restless. Raging and thirsting for fulfillment. For pleasure. We find ourselves in a place of wordless longing, always wanting more. ... Because God has placed powerful longings within you, it stands to reason that God must be the consummation of that need.
*Joni Eareckson Tada. "Prayer as Wordless Longing" (1993). The Contemporaries Meet the Classics on Prayer.
Comments
Popular romantic music, like Bryan Adam's lyrics above, and mystical Christianity, expressing what Joni Eareckson Tada calls "wordless longing," spring from the same Fount of divine inspiration.
I find romantic music, as well as classical music, often to express more heartfully and truly the longings of the human heart for the Divine Presence. Hymns often contain words about God, even as theology speaks about God.
The heart longs to address God and be addressed by God, to see the sensation of difference and distance become the truth of oneness and mutual sharing. The human heart longs for intimate intercourse, Spirit to spirit.
The spiritual intercourse is signified in sexual union of man and woman in True Love. Sadly, only mystical Christianity has dared to employ the synchronicity between sexual union and spiritual union in expressing the longing of the human heart. Traditional, Christian religion has miserably failed to deal both with sexuality and its sacramental implications for the sacrament of romantic intercourse. So, due partly to the failure of Christian faith, it has been up to artists, poets, and musicians outside religious faith to express this sacramental intimacy.
This does not mean secular expressions of the sacrament of union with God or between human persons in True Love is sufficient. Such expressions are indicative, not sufficient. It is one thing to appreciate the aspiration contained in the following lyrics...:
Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you
Quite another thing it is to live that kind of self-giving Loving on behalf of God or another person.
Therefore, the romantic expressions of secular artists receive an answer in spiritual Christianity. True Christianity sees all romantic aspirations for love play, sexual union, and self-sacrificing love for another as issuing from God and able to be fulfilled only in God.
Also, mystical faith asserts ultimately, as two lovers in the heights of self-transcending passion gaze wordlessly into each other's eyes, so is our union with the Source of that gaze. The gaze of human lovers mirrors the One whom, in the lover, we find the Beloved. Through human eyes we gaze upon the Face behind the lover's face. God, through the beloved's eyes, looks into us. And we look, together, into God.
So, yes, appreciate both the intimations and limitations of secular expressions of romance. Use those very intimations to direct the heart into words that express your desire for the pleasure of union with the Divine. Then, entering the Quiet, gaze into the Dark Bright Mystery from your own heart of Wordless Longing.
Suggested Reflection
Do you recall a secular piece of music that speaks to you of your heart-longing for the Divine?
Do you know a Christian hymn that expresses well the joy of mutual loving between God and you?
Are you comfortable with the sacrament of sexual intercourse being used to speak of spiritual intimacy? Explain.
Have you experienced the sacrament of oneness with God through romantic union with another person? Explain.
Is it possible a faithful response to the sexual decadence of our culture would be the church integrating more openly and boldly spiritual teachings intimated in the union between human lovers in True Love? Explain your response.
For submission of replies, see below:
*Brian K. Wilcox is Pastor of Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL. He is a vowed member of Greenbough House of Prayer, a contemplative Christian community. His passion is living a contemplative life and inspiring others to experience a deeper relationship with Christ through contemplative prayer and living.
Key Words: Spiritual Christianity, Romantic Music, Romance, Sexual Union, Sacrament of Sexual Union, True Love, Bryan Adams, Joni Eareckson Tada, Wordless Longing, Quiet, Contemplation, Oneness with God
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