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Brent Curtis and John Eldridge, in The Divine Romance, refer to “relational intimacy” with God, a point of accepting God as a wild lover. This allows us to release our trust in the “lovers” that did not satisfy our deepest needs. The past, insufficient lovers can include intellectualism, reductionism, materialism, psychologism, riches, recreational sex, lust, gluttony, shallow spiritualities, personal power…--and accept Spirit as our wild, satisfying Lover, or Beloved. Curtis and Eldridge speak of even finding our past religious activities to no longer satisfy or benefit us: “There comes a place on our spiritual journey where renewed religious activity is of no use whatsoever.” This point “we are both drawn to and fear it.”
C. S. Lewis wrote, in The Weight of Glory:
We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Curtis and Eldridge speak of the opportunity that awaits us when past “lovers” no longer satisfy us. When our “materialistic” or “spiritual” friends or religious leaders might seek to lead us to renew a past commitment, the Spirit of Christ might be seeking to wean us off the very satisfactions that once were satisfying but are no longer intended to satisfy:
At some point on our Christian journey, we all stand at the edge of those geographies where our heart has been satisfied by less-wild others, whether they be those of competence and order or those of indulgence. If we listen to our heart again, perhaps for the first time in a while, it tells us how weary it is of the familiar and the indulgent. (Curtis and Eldridge)
Spiritual Exercise
1. What less-wild lovers no longer satisfy you?
2. Can you relate to God as your Lover? Explain.
3. How does the image of God as Lover speak to you in ways that the following do not: King, Judge, Lord, Creator, …?
4. Do you sense a need to release some past less-wild lovers to grow more deeply in relational intimacy with the Spirit? What are those less-wild lovers in your life?
Poem
Your name written
Across my breast
Your arms I within
I am blest
And forgetting all but you
I find myself renewed
And found again in sweet loss,
All forever mine, again, with you.
Brian's book of mystical love poetry, An Ache for Union, can be ordered through major bookdealers.
Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors
The People of the
United Methodist Church
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