Song of Songs

The church I went to as a teenager was full of sex. It seeped through the worn wooden pews into the pours of our hands. It sluiced around the stucco walls and fake stained-glass windows. The aroma of young girls at prayer was overpowering. On the surface older people seemed oblivious to this sea of sensuality, yet when I looked closer peeping over the edge of my hymnal I saw folks with closed eyes, backs arching, many holding onto some unexpected yet well-known arousal. A stirring gravity enthralled us as we orbited a magnetic divinity. That day I knew intuitively that the holiness of life was a passion gifted to us by an even greater passion - one that loves us.