Right Time, Right Place

By Matt

I read: Song of Songs 1-3

While the whole of Song of Songs is rather disjointed and hard to grasp to our Western minds, it probably made a whole lot more sense to the Easteners who wrote it and heard it originally, with their decreased dependence on chronological narrative and all. However, one of the things that keeps it together is this sort of refrain that pops up every now and again:

Oh let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem,
by the gazelles, yes, by all the wild deer:
Don't excite love, don't stir it up,
until the time is ripe--and you're ready.

It's interesting that in a book wholly dedicated to discussing love that the common thread that holds it all together is a warning about love. But I guess there is an important distinction; Song of Songs warns about incomplete love, unfinished love. Full-fledged and fully-formed love? By all means.

This is an important warning though. In another book Solomon rightly decrees that "there is a time for everything under the sun," love is obviously not an exception. I think that so many of the problems we see with sex and broken relationships come from not understanding full-fledged and fully-formed love. People want to rush into love, to get to the physical union before the rest of the bonds have been formed. In this scenario the reward is the goal, not the love itself.

So what does Song of Songs love look like? Take a look further on in chapter 2 at what the woman says: "My lover is mine, and I am his." And that's it. No exceptions, no conditions, no clauses. Not "My lover is mine, and I am his for the next fifteen minutes" or "until she wants " or "until I have to meet her parents." Forever is the implied sentiment there. And that quality of foreverness is when you know you've reached the SoS love. When the goal is being there for each other, sacrificing for each other, loving each other, serving each other, respecting each other, and honoring each other forever, you've got it. Not on the good days, not when there's money in the bank account, not when there's no one else, but forever.

When's the right time to stir up love? When you're ready to keep stirring for the rest of eternity.