God, the Ultimate Romancer MAY 12, 2014 Today’s Reflection IT’S NOT AN ACCIDENT that almost every song on the radio is about romantic love; romantic love does indeed need to be sung. And if Christianity is right – if God himself is always singing – and if all this … energy and heartache and passion is more than what Crazy Love makes it out to be, then perhaps all of it is telling us something about God. Not far from where the men in silly hats were swooning over their maidens, in Clairvaux, a French monk named Bernard applied the idea of Crazy Love to monasticism. For him, the Song of Solomon was an allegory of Christ and his church. Bernard created a whole chivalry of Christianity, where monks could learn to love and swear their fealty to God. While troubadours devoted themselves to a lady, monks became troubadours devoted to the Lord. They brought chivalry into their prayer lives and interpretation of the scriptures. Although the idea wasn’t new (the Song of Solomon had long been interpreted as an allegory of God’s love fro the people of Israel in Jewish tradition, and of Christ’s love for the church in Christian tradition), the twelfth and thirteenth centuries brought a more explicitly and personally applicable meaning to the romance of faith. The idea was that God is the great lover, the ultimate romancer. - Tyler Blanski Mud and Poetry
Posted on: Mon, 12 May 2014 10:19:45 +0000
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