The Book of Love

 

The book of love is long and boring
No one can lift the damn thing
It’s full of charts and facts and figures
And instructions for dancing

But I
I love it when you read to me
And you
You can read me anything

The book of love has music in it
In fact that’s where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb

But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything

The book of love is long and boring
And written very long ago
It’s full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes
And things we’re all too young to know

But I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings

And I
I love it when you give me things
And you
You ought to give me wedding rings
You ought to give me wedding rings

Songwriters
Stephen Merritt

Sung by peter Gabriel

 

The Bible is long and can be boring in a few bits! It can’t be lifted because the words of God are infinite in their layers, personal  to each one of us and with different meanings  depending on when we read and where we are that particular hour of the day in our lives. Love can be long and boring. I think of my children, of my times with them growing up. So wondrous and yet the tedium of school runs, cooking tea, flying about taxi-ing them to and fro. I think of my love for Kieran. Everyday, but intense love for my child. Love hidden in the everyday, the ordinary. Mundane, as he announces he needs his goggles and yet suddenly intensified as I realise later they are the last words I ever heard him say. His life, ordinary and yet extraordinary. My love for him, ordinary maternal love- and yet realising that love is anything but ordinary- too late, when he has gone. If my love for him were a book- there are so many memories, layer upon layer, that I could not lift that book. I dreamt of him last week; the first time I had really dreamt of him solidly standing there in front of me and saying he was back, apologising. I woke with being able to feel myself huggling him, his image so strongly etched in my mind. And then I cried, like I hadn’t in a long time, heart renching sobs as I tried to hang on to the dream, wanting to be back in dreamland. Memories made real. Layer upon layer.

There are many long words and distant places, places that exist under different names now, lists of names and family trees, which if I’m honest I skip to the bottom of that list of names.

But this book and these words when read are God’s words to me, his guidance for my life, his love and comfort in those pages. Instructions for dancing remind me that God is a God of fun and humour too. Instructions for dancing mean it’s okay to find enjoyment in life again. Jesus enjoyed a good wedding and social occasion. I picture Jesus and Kieran having their own banquet in Heaven as we will toast the brides and grooms at his brother and sister’s forthcoming weddings.

There is music in the Bible, the music and poetry of the psalms and of course not forgetting the erotic Song of Songs, a love story, an allegory of God’s love for humankind, and of the intensity of divine love within the human heart. The enormity of what Christ did for me hits me- and it has done so for me on many occasions, but none more so when I realised that because of God’s sacrifice and love and extraordinary grace, my son was now with Him and not just ashes in the ground. The essence and soul of Kieran is there with Jesus and this has happened because of God’s incredible, indescribable love.

The Bible is superior and mystical in places, in others mundane and ordinary, with rules about foods to eat, head coverings and fibres that can be worn seeming to be just plain daft today. Grief can feel superior and mystical. You enter a place you don’t want to be, don’t know how to be, want to escape from and hurry along, and yet are powerless to do anything except just be. And yet through that grief I have grown. Grown and been blessed in ways I could never have imagined. The insights and fuller faith that has been realised as I have wrestled with God in my anger, un comprehension and tears and yet felt his presence so very near to me and deep within has been indescribable. I understand grief for others in a way I could never have understood before. And yet of course I recognise and feel powerless in another’s grief because it is such a lonely and unique experience. No-one can grieve for you; no-one grieves the same as you do.

For Harry Potter fans, at the start of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, Harry sees the mystical creatures, Thestrals, pulling the school carriages. He is amazed that he has never seen them before, and not everyone appears to be able to see them. But his friend Luna points out that it is when you have seen death and understood that you have visibility of the creatures. And Harry had seen a fellow pupil die at the hands of evil Voldemort in the preceding book. He has experienced awful things but now sees these beautiful creatures. The tragic part of our lives open up new truths and new beauties despite the ugly pit we find ourselves in.

 

The Bible is full of hope. God rescuing us. So many types of writing Law, History, Wisdom, Poetry, Gospel, Epistles, Prophecy, and Apocalyptic Literature. It’s all there, sometimes beautiful, sometimes harsh.

Initially I’d argue that it isn’t all flowers and heart shaped boxes; that some of the Bible is horrific, like any love story, be it the love story you have with your child or your partner or your parents or your siblings. I think of how my remaining two argue and yet the love is there, an unbroken bond that comes from having the same childhood, the same setting, the same family, that knits you together, so in fact the flowers and love that weaves through the story, the song are always there amongst the horrors. Love flows through the words; God saving us again and again and again when we mess up once more.

We will always be too young to know the wondrous, infinite wisdom and being of God. We get but just a glimpse- but what a glimpse that is in Jesus Christ. The triune God come down to show us how to live since we just don’t get it! And then the ultimate saving grace as he takes all our sins that have been before us and will continue on and sacrifices himself so we can be united with him once more. That incredible love that soars beyond infinity and surpasses all understanding. And there we are the Bride of Christ. The church married to God.

The Bible is the book of love to me, God has given this to me, he speaks to me through it. Kieran’s life as my son is also personified in the book of love. This song seems quite ordinary at first, but think about it, reflect and it will speak to you of eternal love.