tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post8589495977096059752..comments2024-03-22T17:35:52.045-04:00Comments on Extra Thoughts: Thy beauty, long-desiredLydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-62190214409508234962008-03-18T11:22:00.000-04:002008-03-18T11:22:00.000-04:00I think actually the Eastern mentality of Solomon'...I think actually the Eastern mentality of Solomon's day just had a somewhat different set of physical compliments than the Western mentality.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-9458534584232267432008-03-18T01:14:00.000-04:002008-03-18T01:14:00.000-04:00why it is considered a compliment to a lady to tel...<I>why it is considered a compliment to a lady to tell her that her neck is like a tower with shields hung around it.</I><BR/><BR/>That's the Church connection you've been missing!<BR/><BR/><I>Er, very beautiful</I> <BR/><BR/>:~)William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-70560154198025174982008-03-17T20:05:00.000-04:002008-03-17T20:05:00.000-04:00Er, very beautiful, the Song of Songs. But I'm afr...Er, very beautiful, the Song of Songs. But I'm afraid it really is about erotic love between a man and a woman, not about Christ and the Church and stuff like that. And some of it I don't understand, chiefly because I'm pretty obviously just missing cultural references--e.g., why it is considered a compliment to a lady to tell her that her neck is like a tower with shields hung around it. :-)Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-35273125742420461352008-03-17T16:42:00.000-04:002008-03-17T16:42:00.000-04:00I really cannot abide the poetry of St. John of th...<I>I really cannot abide the poetry of St. John of the Cross, btw. They had a bunch of it translated in First Things a couple of years ago. All that "embracing my beloved" stuff creeped me out.</I><BR/><BR/>:~) <BR/><BR/>I've only seen snatches of it. Piety and poetry can be merged by greatness, but I'm thinking more of Herbert, Donne, etc. And the Bible in places. I was wondering what you thought of the Song of Solomon?William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-19065226410796738972008-03-16T20:42:00.000-04:002008-03-16T20:42:00.000-04:00You're quite right about the meaning. The "face" o...You're quite right about the meaning. The "face" or "head" obviously stands for the whole person. The grief is the grief for his death, for the loss of the person en toto.<BR/><BR/>Again, I'm probably too literal-minded. I really cannot abide the poetry of St. John of the Cross, btw. They had a bunch of it translated in First Things a couple of years ago. All that "embracing my beloved" stuff creeped me out. <BR/><BR/>This isn't actually like that, though. It just refers to Christ's "beauty" and asks him to show "the brightness of his face." Probably this will work the best for me if I think of the brightness in terms of intelligence, wisdom, liveliness. Which is one of the levels I think you are describing. And all of which was surely there in life. There's much humor in the Gospels, actually. Very Jewish humor, I might add. And when you do see someone you love suffering or dying, I imagine that one of the things that would stab most would be remembering the gleam in his eye, the way he looked when he said this or that.<BR/><BR/>Speaking of God's light being quenched and taken from the sight of men, I recommend Potok's _The Chosen_. There's this whole reverberating theme of the silence of God all through it. Not Christian, of course, but it cries out _for_ Christianity unconsciously, as it were. The old Rebbe says at the end to his son, "You will be a tzaddik for the world. And the world needs a tzaddik." A tzaddik is a just or righteous man. As to what the character in the book means by a tzaddik, well, you almost have to read the book. But as a hint, in that man's view, a tzaddik bears the sorrows of his people. Very like Isaiah 53, in fact.Lydia McGrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-68462139704277700042008-03-16T20:21:00.000-04:002008-03-16T20:21:00.000-04:00We have absolutely no reason to believe that he wa...<I>We have absolutely no reason to believe that he was especially handsome.</I><BR/><BR/>What reason do we have to believe that he wasn't? If the image on the Shroud resurrects (so to speak) its importance, the man pictured there strikes me as distinctively, ruggedly handsome. Not that it makes any difference either way, but I don't see the point in presuming. When Isaiah (the Man of Sorrows passage) says that he will have no form or comeliness, no "beauty that we should desire him," I don't think he's talking about <I>that</I> kind of beauty at all (otherwise, the passage could be read in one sense blasphemous). The nation is waiting for a Deliverer. The "appearance", the comeliness, they are looking for is of a princely nature, royally arrayed, or in some way obviously anointed, by force of arms, or whatever. But He will not come that way at all.<BR/><BR/>Poetry that's any good should work on more than one level, and I think the verse cited from the song achieves this. However ordinary He looked before His agony and crucifixion, it must certainly have been beautiful compared to after. And then there is the beauty of divine truth, emodied in His very person - the words he spoke, the works (many miraculous) of His hands, the integrity of His intellect, His mercy (for the woman taken in adultery), even His tenderness towards children. His followers see all this being taken from them, when in fact it is only beginning. And has not this been the plight of all men since the Fall, that God's beauty and power seem "all expired", His light "quenched" from the sight of men? And now that some, by faith, have finally seen it, it appears to be going away again. I think the verse captures well (insofar as a mere song can do such a thing) both the sense of immediate loss and mankind's longing for the Desire of Nations.William Lusehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15928946919078483848noreply@blogger.com