Directions of a Pastoral Lifetime: Part V: the Song of Songs: an Attraction

By William Flewelling

I had been asked to do a Bible study when I began my first church out of seminary. I agreed, so long as I could do it my way. In the fourth year of my work at Hilltop Christian Church in Mantua, Ohio, I chose to do the Song of Solomon (known in many circles as the Song of Songs). I was guided in the development in part by the then-recent anchor Bible commentary by Marvin Pope. The study influenced me greatly. In the next decade or so, I indulged a variety of works on the Song of Songs, largely but not exclusively in the Christian mystical tradition. In 1997, I found a way to work on a devotional development from the Song of Songs, resulting in a work I found satisfying. From those two major efforts, a few minor ones arose. I have collected here the ways in which the Song of Songs has woven into my work as a pastor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504901253

William Flewelling

I am a retired minister from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) living in central Illinois. Led by a request from Mildred Corwin of Manua OH when I arrived there in 1976, I long developed and led a series of bible studies there and in LaPorte IN and New Martinsville WV. These studies proved to be very feeding to me in my pastoral work and won a certain degree of following in my congregations. My first study was on 1 Peter, chosen because I knew almost nothing about the book. I now live quietly in retirement with my wife of 54 years, a pair of dogs and several cats.

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Published by AuthorHouse 03/19/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0126-0 (sc)

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Contents

The Song of Songs, With Devotional Commentary

1:1

1:2-4

1:2-4

1:5-6

1:5-6

1:7-8

1:7-8

1:9-11

1:9-11

1:12-14

1:12-14

1:15-17

1:15-17

2:1-3

2:1-3

2:4-7

2:4-7

2:8-13

2:8-13

2:14

2:14

2:15

2:15

2:16-17

2:16-17

3:1-5

3:1-5

3:6-11

3:6-11

4:1-7

4:1-7

4:8

4:8

4:9-11

4:9-11

4:12 – 5:1

4:12 – 5:1

5:2 – 6:3

5:2 – 6:3

6:4-10

6:4-10

6:11-12

6:11-12

7:1-6

7:1-6

7:7-10

7:7-10

7:11-14

7:11-14

8:1-4

8:1-4

8:5a

8:5a

8:5b

8:5b

8:6-7

8:6-7

8:8-10

8:8-10

8:11-12

8:11-12

8:13-14

8:13-14

A Study of The Song Of Solomon

Notes on Song of Songs 1:1-7: September 4, 1979

Notes on Song of Songs 1:8-17 ; September 11, 1979

Notes on the Song of Songs 2: September 18, 1979

Notes on the Song of Songs 3: September 25, 1979

Notes on Song of Solomon: 4:1-8: October 2, 1979

Notes on Song of Solomon 4:9 – 5:1: October 9, 1979

Notes on Song of Solomon 5:2-16: October 16, 1979

Notes on Song of Solomon 6: October 23, 1979

Notes on Song of Solomon 7: October 30, 1979

Notes on Song of Solomon 8: November 6, 1979

The Excitement of God

Easter Sunrise Service

Quiet Meditations Based On Texts

535

1062

1224

Also By This Author

Poetry

Time Grown Lively

From My Corner Seat

Enticing My Delight

The Arthur Poems

From Recurrent Yesterdays

In Silhouette

To Silent Disappearance

Teasing The Soul

Allowing The Heart To Contemplate

As Lace Along The Wood

To Trace Familiarity

Devotional

Some Reflective Prayers

Reflective Prayers: A Second Collection

A Third Collection Of Reflective Prayers

For Your Quiet Meditation

Directions Of A Pastoral Lifetime

Part I: Pastoral Notes, Letters To Anna, Occasional Pamphlets

Part II: Psalm Meditation, Regula Vitae

Part III: Elders’ Studies

Part IV: Studies

all published by AuthorHouse.com

Foreword

When I first arrived at my first church out of Seminary in the summer of 1976, I was asked if I would lead Bible Studies. I agreed, if they let me do it my way; they agreed. My way was to take something I did not know and attack it, first by translation and then by extended comment. In the fall of 1976, I opened with 1 Peter, about which I then knew almost nothing. Three years and several studies later, in the fall of 1979, I led the group through a study of The Song of Solomon, in Hebrew The Song of Songs which is Solomon’s, using my common assumption that the text we have before us is to be read in continuous fashion, making sense that way, canonically. I found it intriguing and enjoyable.

A year or so later I was introduced to the Cistercian Sermon Commentaries, beginning with those of Bernard of Clairvaux. In time, I read all of them (Bernard, Gilbert of Hoyland and John of Ford) and added those of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. On an offhanded basis, I continued now and then to dabble with the Song with thoughts of doing something devotional with it. In 1997, I picked up Marcia Falk’s The Song of Songs: A New Translation, the HarperCollins paperback edition of 1993. Her approach attracted me and I chose to follow her example. Where she reproduced the Hebrew text, I chose to translate; where she answered the text with her own verse response – I would say response more than translation – I used my own verse response. I then added a prose meditation on each of the thirty one lyric poems. I found that her arrangement was nearly identical to that suggested by Form Critics, summarized in Roland Murphy’s Wisdom Literature in The Forms of the Old Testament Literature series (Vol. XIII, Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 1981). In the summer of 1997, as the work was developing, I shared the prose meditations with a friend, Hayden Jones, who was dying with cancer; he reported to find them helpful in the course of his late illness.

Following that 1979 Bible Study, I offered myself an academic style paper on the Song which I have decided to include here. Later, while serving in New Martinsville in the late 90s and early 00s, I used the Song as a partner with John 20:1-18 for an Easter Sunrise service, which I also include.

Around the year 2000, attending a silent retreat with some of my colleagues in the Region of West Virginia, The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), it was suggested that we take some bit of scripture as an accompaniment during the day of silence. I found an early edition of Rudolf Kittel’s Biblica Hebraica in the Paul VI retreat center (near Wheeling, WV) library and chose the opening of the Song as my verse – or half verse in this case: yishshaqeni minneshiqim pihu: let him kiss me of the kisses of his mouth. I wrote it out in Hebrew on a note card and carried it in my pocket for occasional review; I found it a fond accompaniment in that time of silence.

With such a fond acquaintance, I bring these reflections together in this Part V of my Directions of a Pastoral Lifetime to complete the sampling of my own work and development in ministry. All these parts have been significant in the evolution of my role in ministry over my years, such that I wished to make them an assembled offering. I hope they prove enjoyable to you.

William Flewelling

The Song of Songs, With Devotional Commentary

As noted in the Forward, the organization of this piece was inspired by the work of Marcia Falk in her The Song of Songs: A New Translation, 1993. I follow her use of 31 lyric poems following the title verse, offering my own prose translation of the various poems on the left hand side, my own verse expression of the poems as I experience them on the right hand, facing page. I adopted Falk’s method of showing voices in type face: the single female voice in ordinary type, the single male voice in italics and group or unidentified voices in bold face. I added to Falk’s presentation a devotional commentary on each of the 31 lyric poems and the title verse as well.

I used Rudolf Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica, third edition published by the Wurttembergische Bibelanstalt Stuttgart in 1971 as the text for my reflections.

The Song of Songs Which is Solomon’s

1:1

There is that Song of Songs that is of Solomon, a series of single poems, love poems, set out in a collection. But there is also this claim that the collection is itself a Song, The Song of Songs. Sensual and emptive, the poems tap the love between a man and a woman, a love appreciative of the beloved. The poems, the Song of Songs, stand in Scripture, enshrining human romantic love in a sacred setting, impelling many to recognize the love experienced of God. God’s love is known in covenant relations, and with intimate abandon, a love with the people of God, and a love learned with luminous allure in the deeper currents of prayer.

Sublime interplay there is in the life of prayer, an interplay that sings to God in love’s sheer delight while knowing God singing back in divine delight, a duet in which is met deep appreciation of each for each, of beauties and desires that engulg the hole of the self. And, the Song suggests, the whole of God. God comes across here, as so often in Scripture as hardly a disinterested lover. But as a lover who comes to the beloved, who comes as a lover to the Beloved. The Song is between My Love and Whom My Soul Loves.

At once a song for youth and for those who have added to the passion of immediate intimacy the ever deepening abandon to the joy of the beloved, who add to deep, strong currents of longing a stately bliss of acceptance and yielding to the sweetest charms, this Song of Songs entices the sense and savor of love… with God. Leading on by the way of experience, the way of longing, no longer seeking to possess, even to a mutual possession, all gives way to a deeper longing to be given into the unfathomable wonder of God, to yield to the divine, to discover the diving yielding to us. To find the beauty and delight of prayer yielding to the desire to be in union with God, the lover at one with the beloved. Ah! Bliss!

God, sing with us the rich song of longing, of love, of lingering each with each, for we would discover the immense riches of your grace; in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1:2-4

He kisses me from kisses of his mouth;

far better your love than wine,

than odor of your oil: better!

Oil of Turaq, your name:

therefore young women love you.

Draw me after you; we will run!

The King brings me in his chambers;

we will rejoice and exult in you.

We will keep your love in memory, more than wine.

Rightly do they love you.

Engagement, loving kiss

looms smoother than aged wine,

more graced than fragrant oil,

anointing full desire.

Young women offer love.

Draw me: attract! We run!

You bring me, savor me,

rejoicing to exult:

your love, as tingling wine.

Youth loves you: ah! Sublime!

1:2-4

And what could be like the taste of the Lord’s love, this engagement face to face and heart to heart with God? He kisses me, the Song proclaims. Astonishing, this drawing near, this being drawn near, found in the magnetic-like attraction of the Lord God, to the point where the presence of God fills, overfills, floods the soul.

This shows in the flesh. A flush comes to the throat, a tingling resonance in the skin, a resounding movement in the body itself… as in the engaging rush of the lover’s kiss. Mouth to mouth, and breath with breath mingled deeply, breath with breath, spirit with spirit: for it is love.

The kiss of God, a drawing into intimacy, held close and daring, darling, dandling in the pleasures and joys God wills to share. A thoroughgoing refreshment coats the throat, warm and tingling, drawing into focus the presence shared. The kisses come warmer, sweeter than by fine wine, with a head-spinning intoxication with the breath that mingles. As anointing oil, fragrant and warm, massaged into the flesh, drawing the blood to flush the skin, singing into the muscles, relaxing, into the joints as genial grace, into the soul as permeating love: thus, your kiss, O God. No wonder they turn to you, God, turn in flagrant love, in rapt desire!

O God, having this taste, draw me on! onward! into the retirement, the blissful secrecy of your inner space, that intimate space where I may rejoice in you, where I may join in exultation with you, in sheer delight!

This thorough engagement, deep-plighted wonder, marvel of beauty, finds me breathless, in abandon, caught in your divine allure. O God: in memory this kiss remains alive, this searching flame of love, more subtle, rich and full than that of wine. So close, you cleave me, cleave unto me, search and sear and saturate me with your love. O God, know well my love, as yielded into you, poured into this, the kiss so shared, so deeply wont with you. This bliss, O God: Sublime!

Into your satisfying grace, O God, I come. I search for you: o find me! Now thy kiss engulfs me. Beloved of My Soul! Amen.

1:5-6

Black and I, and beautiful,

daughters of Jerusalem,

like tents of Qedar,

like curtains of Solomon.

Gaze not on me, that I be blackish,

that the sun caught sight of me.

Sons of my mother are kindled with me.

They set me keeping the vineyards.

My vineyard, my own, I kept not.

Oiled ebony aglow:

you see me, elegant.

The desert tents that screen,

King’s curtains, veils: catch sight!

Sun glitters, sees me, shines

to tinge me, warm my flesh.

Glance not on noble swarth

embraced by fervent Light.

Those angered brothers seethe.

They set me to the vines.

My own I open, fine.

1:5-6

Within a confused and demanding life, it seems that everyone has a clear idea just what is best for everybody else. Wisdom comes to each, according to their best lights. And vision comes as eyes are allowed to behold. Regulations come, and directions follow in an effort to make for a neat group-internal conformity. A man grows to a spiritual transparency that far exceeds those around him; the community tries everything to bring him to their normal experience. A woman expresses her passion for God: those who have position of influence struggle to force her into their mold. Another man begins with an intense inner experience and goes to those reputed to know of such things, to help him understand; they want him in their mold for they are not able to take on the flexibility to expand far enough to include his questions.

They set me to tending their vineyards. My vineyard, my own I kept not. My own I open, fine. The brothers apply influence, making the avid soul to tend their vineyards. But the vineyard of the woman in the song: that is left open, unguarded, inviting. Anger seeks to restrict, but