Oil and Wine

"(He) has given me wine, to bring delight to my heart, and oil, so that my face shines".

Psalm 104:15.

There's something that holds us in the words of a love song.

"Sweet love, sweet love, trapped in your love,

I've opened up, unsure I can trust,

My heart and I were buried in dust,

Free me, free us.

I found the one that I can trust,

and, oh, I believe in us,

I am terrified to love for the first time,

Can't you see I'm bound in chains,

I'm bound to you.

Sweet love, so pure".

(Bound to You - Christina Aguilera).

One of the very deep points in scripture comes at the core of the Song of Songs.

In chapter 2 and verse 9, the author draws our attention to the gaze of the youth seeking his beloved from outside of the house where she and her family reside. The 'walls' of the building divide them, but the gaze of the one outside is eagerly within, seeking to look upon the visage of the one he pursues. This is all evidenced by the woman he seeks, who, peering through a lattice, is clearly delighting in the stature and the visual pursuit of the one seeking her. Although they are still apart, this mutual exchange of view allows for a look that is beyond the merely peripheral or superficial - each of them are truly revelling in the splendour of the other.

The writer wants us to go beyond what is happening externally - to see that the joy of the moment is generated by the sheer wonder each has within for the other.

The description of the moment, then - the poise, the situation, the searching out to see, is all meant to draw us into the actual potential of what is unfolding here. The man is about to begin to convey what both of them desire - to be joined as one, beyond any material or external confines, that they may truly share of the exquisite bounty of their love (2:10-14).

The sheer busyness of life can often keep us away from such a 'window'. We can become so confined by the daily 'noise' that passes for what's real, that we fail to gaze outside into the realm of the one who has come to us. The "safety" of routine, of the known factors of what surround us, be they religious or secular, can hinder us from seeing and hearing what has come to us from afar - come to woo us and revive the deepest longings within our innermost essential image (the marred, but still present image of the beloved).

Like the woman here, we must become those whose hearts and lives are raised from the dust, that our gaze may be brought upward to become enthralled by the one who has come for us, to take us far beyond the bounds of what we have known, to a realm eternally filled with the splendour and fragrance of unceasing love.

Therein resides the beauty of genuine holiness.