Love, fire---burn me out.

Song of Solomon---A dangerous book...read it, if you dare. If you want your heart to burn you, to consume you with love, the hope of love, the ideal of love, then read it, and you shall indeed be "sick with love" (Song 2:5).

I will elaborate on the Song of Solomon, chapter 8 in particular.

Below is my ideal of love; it is how I will pray in relation to the love(r) which God sends me:

When God descended on Mount Sinai he came in fire (Ex 19:18). "The mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven" (Deut 4:11). Love, avows the Song of Solomon, "Flashes forth flames of fire, the very flame of the Lord" (Song 8:6). Love burns to the heart of heaven, for God is love. "The very flame of the Lord." Love is the very flame of the Lord--the very flame. Love is a coal from the altar of the divine. Love between a man and women. Love which, though marred by the fall, can be restored by Christ's grace. Love flashes forth flames of fire.

I cannot and I will not settle for any thing less than love, than a fire that burns through me and into the heart of my lover. She will be my fire, my flame of the Lord. But does anyone hope for this love? Does it last? (If and) When married, I will pray to this God of love, I will pray for fire, I will pray that he flashes forth on me any lover his very flame. The same love that the Trinity contains. That love teaching that Christ poured upon the disciples on the journey to Emmaus, their response: "Did our hearts not burn within us."

How can the audience of Song of Solomon then not say, "Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!" (Song 5:1). "Be drunk with love", "I am sick with love (Song 2:5)", "the very flame of the Lord." I'd rather be single for 1000 years than find a love less than what Scripture displays to me. I want the love to burn me out, to make me sick, die, and be resurrected. Yes, an unreasonable hope between humans. But as I burn in Christ, perhaps he will grant me and my lover a spark, a flame from his throne, from himself. If he grants me but a spark it will be a love of force, power, and delight, reaching to the heart of heaven. Be it only a spark, this love is the very flame of the Lord. And thus the love is sufficient if only a flash, for our Lord is infinite, and that is all.