taking a break

Well, as the silence might indicate, I have been very busy. It's three months until my thesis submission date and I have got to the point where I'm waking up in the middle of the night thinking about chapter four. (At present I feel as though chapter four will haunt me for the rest of my days, but I hope that's just paranoia). In addition, a colleague and I have been given the opportunity to develop and teach at least one (hopefully two) British history subjects in our department next year. Very exciting, given that neither of us has actually received our doctorates yet, but it's meant a flurry of work preparing course outlines. In short, I haven't had the time or energy for blogging and I think until the thesis is submitted that's unlikely to change. So I'll be dropping in occasionally, but not posting much. I hope to get back into it in August - until then, thanks so much for reading!

perils of an ipod (or 'from the sublime to the ridiculous')

Can I just ask: is there anything more ridiculous than a 31-year-old, middle-class white woman standing in a train carriage jam-packed with commuters, jutting her chin and tapping her toe while repeatedly mouthing the words 'Jesus walks'?
I think not. And yet, when it comes to this song, I simply cannot help myself. My fellow-passengers should just be relieved that I have so far resisted the urge to actually start rapping. 'Y'll know what the midwest is?/ The young and restless - the restless/ Might snatch your neckless/ Next day - they'll jack your Lexus'. I save that for the shower.

Song of Songs (6): Resurrection

Christ has died.
Christ has risen.
Christ will come again.

Reflecting on the resurrection over the weekend, I realise that the connection between eros and Easter is an important one. We listened to a series of talks by N.T. Wright on Sunday afternoon, which brought this home to me. The bodily resurrection, rightly understood, is the sign of God's lasting commitment to what he has made. He will not simply destroy this creation: he is recreating it, and one day he will bring that recreation to completeness. God's commitment to creation is why this body and its desires and its experiences matter. It's why gender and sex matter. It's why eros is God's good gift, not simply the meaningless impulse of flesh that has nothing to do with the important matters of spirit. It's why sexual abuse is so deeply and agonisingly destructive to people and an abomination to God. It's why we cannot simply say (much as I would like to!) that with all the poverty and injustice in this world, who cares what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms? The resurrection means that God cares. This is not to say that the state should regulate sexual practice as it does taxes or traffic. It is to say that we come to God as whole people and as whole communities: our eating, our drinking, our sexual desires, our shopping, the thoughts and inspirations of our hearts, our treatment of the poor, the art we create and the books we read and write. God is committed to it all, and this is the context in which he builds his kingdom. And perhaps this is the insight to which the Song points when it recognises how profoundly and how powerfully love can move a person:

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." (Song 8: 6-7)

Song of Songs (5): the Pope and the Song

Given that Benedict XVI and I are such chums, it's not surprising that he too should have been giving the Song some thought in recent months. In his first papal encyclical, the Pope explores the idea of God's love. In the process, he deals with the question of the relationship between eros (which he variously defines as 'worldly', 'possessive' or 'ascending' love) and agape ('love grounded in... faith', 'oblative' or 'descending' love). The Pope argues strongly that the biblical tradition affirms the value of eros, but he condemns any use of sex that demeans the body or turns it into just another product to be consumed. Eros has the potential to lead men and women to an unselfish love, towards 'the Divine' - but only through 'a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing'. And this is where he turns his attention to the Song:

"Concretely, what does this path of ascent and purification entail? How might love be experienced so that it can fully realize its human and divine promise? Here we can find a first, important indication in the Song of Songs, an Old Testament book well known to the mystics. According to the interpretation generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt conjugal love. In this context it is highly instructive to note that in the course of the book two different Hebrew words are used to indicate “love”. First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the similar-sounding agape, which, as we have seen, becomes the typical expression for the biblical notion of love. By contrast with an indeterminate, “searching” love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice."

This is a thoughtful attempt to give eros an honoured place in Christian theology and experience. Two of the many responses to the encyclical, one positive from the theologian John Milbank, another less so from an Anglican priest here in Melbourne, suggest that the church is ready to hear a lot more discussion about the rightful place of eros.

Song of Songs (4): Actually singing it.

Here's a tough question: what do we do with the Song of Songs in the modern church? The problem, I think, is that it creates a clash of categories for us. In the modern church, we sing together, about stuff in which we have some kind of communal investment. Even when our songs are individual ('I just really want to praise you' style) they represent topics and sentiments that are communal, public. In the modern church, sexual desire is not really a 'together' topic: it's deeply private. I feel resentment at being asked to sing 'I feel like dancing' in church, but I would feel intense embarrassment about being asked to sing 'Shall I climb that palm and take hold of the boughs?' in church. Not to mention the pastoral issues involved in singing of the sweetness of sexual desire for those for whom this desire is a matter of agony.
A friend and relation of mine, whom I will call Simone (because that's her name) suggests that the Song works best as a kind of pop music - for performance, not communal singing. She's used the Song as the inspiration for lyrics that could be sung as a solo performance, in 'pop' style. I reproduce it here: she'd happily receive any comments or suggestions!

kiss me, kiss me

1. My lover like no other,
A pear tree in the forest,
My joy to sit in his shelter,
His fruit is sweet, sweet to my taste.

Lay me down among your foliage,
Cover me with love, your banner, your flag,
Strengthen me with fruit for I, I am fev'rish
Revive my flesh for I am faint.

Kiss me, kiss me,
Fill me up
Delight my senses with your touch,
Kiss me, kiss me,
Soar above
I'm drunk on your fragrance
and your wonderful love.

2. My lover wants no other,
My vineyard his desire
Come see the buds that have blossomed
The flowers opened; they're in bloom

Come, come with me now, beloved
As you touch my hand, my pulse rises above
Open up your lips, your mouth to my sweetness
Drink the new wine of my love.

Kiss me, kiss me,
Fill me up
Delight my senses with your touch,
Kiss me, kiss me,
Soar above
I'm drunk on your fragrance
and your wonderful love.

Bridge:
I am a garden locked up,
My springs, my fruits are enclosed
But now I give you the key,
My lover coming to me
His left hand under my head,
His right hand holding me close.

Kiss me, kiss me,
Fill me up
Delight my senses with your touch,
Kiss me, kiss me,
Soar above
I'm drunk on your fragrance
and your wonderful love.

Song of Songs (3): movies and marriage

O for your kiss! For your love
More enticing than wine,
For your scent and sweet name -
For all this they love you.

Take me away to your room,
Like a king to his rooms -
We'll rejoice there with wine.
No wonder they love you!

(Poem 1, in Marcia Falk's translation of The Song of Songs)


Of all the places you might expect to hear a bit of the Song of Songs, a rather black British comedy starring Rowan Atkinson would probably not be one of them. In the recent film Keeping Mum, however, the Song has an important role to play. The film itself is an odd mixture, combining black humour and some rather disturbing sub-plots with a quite profound story about a struggling marriage. There's an unevenness about it that reminds me of Love Actually, which managed to place a series of rom-com stories ranging from the frothy to the outrageous, next to a searingly honest and powerful story of a marriage betrayed.
Keeping Mum tells the story of the Reverend Walter Goodfellow, a rather ineffectual parish priest, trying to manage the endless tasks of ministry alongside a family that's wilting because of his neglect. His son is being bullied, his daughter is sleeping her way through a succession of boyfriends, and his wife Gloria (Kristen Scott Thomas, magnificent as always) is being seduced by the local golf coach (played by Patrick Swayze, who was born to play sleazy Americans!). Into their lives comes a new housekeeper Grace Hawkins, who immediately begins to transform their lives, through fair means and foul. Bodies pile up, self-discovery and the revelation of secrets ensues.
Apart from the rather clever play with names (Goodfellow, Gloria, Grace) the thing I really liked about this movie was the way it dealt with Walter and Gloria's marriage. It is on the rocks: Walter is obsessed with his parish and his sermon-writing: he is trying to be everything to everyone and failing miserably. Gloria, who married Walter because she recognised that he was different and special, is starved for attention and desperate for an escape from the stultifying world of the village. Grace engineers a solution, and in part it involves the Song. She encourages Walter to read the Song, brushing aside his suggestion that its an allegory of divine love. 'The Bible is full of sex!' she exclaims. In a beautiful scene, Walter reads the Song, while watching his wife prepare for bed. When I say that this scene makes Rowan Atkinson an extremely desirable man, fans of Mr Bean will appreciate the power of the Song!
In one sense, this is quite a conventional use of the Song: it expresses desire within the sanctioned context of marriage. Reading the Song itself, it's quite clear that the Song is not primarily about marriage, but about erotic desire. The Song assumes that this desire is connected to marriage (though not necessarily monogamous marriage, given the references to Solomon's concubines), but the language is of 'my bride', not 'my wife'. On the surface, the Song is about youth, beauty and honeymoons, not about a middle-aged vicar and his cardigan-wearing wife. But I think the insight of the movie is that this idealised depiction of youthful love among the pomegranates is also fittingly read within a tried and tested sexual relationship. In that context the Song points to the possibility of a continual rediscovery of desire, to the sudden recognition of the beauty of the other, and to the love 'stronger than death' that fuels these encounters. Against this background, the frantic promiscuity of the Goodfellows' beautiful daughter is clearly seen to have little to do with love or desire of such depth.