Like most people, I have always been attracted to beauty. I even astonished myself and my spiritual director once years ago by announcing the audacious discovery that I realized I was called to encounter beauty. I suppose I should try to explain that I experience the unitive—the presence of The Holy—in encounters with beauty. Of course, it was not the experience that was a spiritual discovery but rather the comprehension that I have the same manifest physical symptoms of ontological union when I am in the presence of The Holy that I have when I am lifted out of myself by music, or nature, or dare I say it, the sight of those who are by and for me beloved.
I often have written about how it is that we always are in the presence of God but only aware of it occasionally. We tend to perceive that God comes and goes, but it is the other way around. God always is with us. It is we who allow our openness to holiness to wax and wane as it suits our mood or our busy-ness. To be always in the presence of holiness is not only possible, it is the intended reality of God’s creation. It is only our distractedness that gets in the way.
Thus, it is important to celebrate the importance of beauty—however one might wish to define it—in the comprehension of the depth and breadth and presence of love. Love is always ours, if only we can stretch beyond our sense of self to grasp it. And when we can grasp love, then we achieve the grace God intends for all of creation.
Our religious practices, the ways in which we live out our faith, are expressions of joy in the inculcation of love in our souls. We rely on religion the way we rely on hardware stores and pharmacies—they all give us tools we need at specific moments, they all have lots of tools, they all let us choose the tools that will work for us in the moment. Because even with love, the tools are important.
Scripture this week takes us into the forecourts of the metaphor of the beloved with text from the Song of Solomon (2:8-13), that paean to love and its triumph that resides in the Old Testament as the culmination of wisdom. The response is from Psalm 45 (2). Both express the overwhelming passion of the joy of love. Both remind us that the intensity of the love we experience is an exact pathway to the presence of holiness. Love creates passion, which creates more love, which creates more passion. We are called—indeed created—to love God in the way in which we love passionately. This is why I keep writing that LGBTQ people are innately created by God to build up the love in creation, because we are created specifically for the purpose of creating love, our very identity comes from the ways in which we are capable of loving.
We who are defined by our love, we whose families are not biological of necessity but rather, are logical of love, it is we who are the leaders in creation at building up love. This is our responsibility as LGBTQ heirs of creation to keep building up love.
James (1:17-27) reminds us to “be doers of the word.” Love comes from God because love is God as God is love. Giving is the expression of love. Love is action. Giving love brings more love. The proof is in the source of our love, which is God, which is our universality, which is made up of love and loving. And it is only action that sustains and maintains love. Imagine that–sustainable love!
Paul writes of spirit and flesh; Jesus in Mark’s Gospel (7:1-23) speaks of God and human—it is the same dichotomy. We are called to love, to give love, to perceive and sustain the love that comes from within. But the absence of love also can come from within, when we hold too firmly to the walls that protect us from each other, that prevent us from love. This is our solitary confinement, isolation within our own walls of protection. It is a human mechanism necessary for survival but yet it must be overcome to attain holiness, indeed even to allow love. We must learn to tear down the interior walls that prevent us from loving.
That brings us full circle to beauty. Creation, indeed all of life, is filled with beauty, placed there for our pleasure. Yes, pleasure—it is to give us pleasure. But more, it is to remind us that in those instances of pleasure, indeed of passion, we are at the peak of loving, which is where we are called to be. Here is the point of sustainable love.
Proper 17 Year B 2021 RCL (Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Psalm 45:1-2, 7-10 Eructavit cor meum; James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)
©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 