Falling in Love the Biblical Way Reflections on Song of Songs I’m quick to fall in love; my wife takes her time. Luckily, this boded well for me. I fell in love with Kalene literally at first sight. Since I had planned for Kalene to be my bandmate—we were meeting for a music audition—I later tried to argue myself out of being pain-in-my-gut in love. My one music rule: “Bandmates don’t date other bandmates.” So, I ended my “techno meets indy rock” career. But as I fell out of love with weird music and into love with Kalene, I saw that she wasn’t quite in love with me. It took Kalene a month or more to fall for me. But once two people fall in love, there is little anyone can do to stop them. Song of Songs is an epic biblical poem about falling in love. It’s so gushy that it’s almost ludicrous. Love must be the most powerful of all emotions—and we see this throughout Song of Songs. There is a beautiful woman, who is ready to marry. The woman and her future husband are on a journey, awaiting their wedding day (Song 3:6–11). Along their journey, the couple writes some don’t-let-your-parents-see-it poetry. At one point, the woman says: “My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! He is standing behind our wall, gazing through the window, looking through the lattice. My beloved answered and said to me, ‘Arise, my beloved! Come, my beauty!’ ” (Song 2:9–10). Romeo and Juliet suddenly doesn’t seem so original. Later on, the woman says: “On my bed in the night, I sought him whom my heart loves. I sought him, but I did not find him” (Song of Songs 3:1). Upon marriage, the man remarks: “Look! You are beautiful, my beloved! Look! You are beautiful! Your eyes are doves from behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats that move down from the mountains of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that came up from the washing.… You are completely beautiful, my beloved! You are flawless!” (Song 4:1–2, 7). That’s how you compliment a woman in the ancient world. It doesn’t work as well on my wife—I know, I’ve tried—so men, spare your wife the pain. Song of Songs is full of things that only lovers say; it’s words spoken in the dark. But in this biblical context of marriage, these words can be spoken in the light. Song of Song shows us that an authentic and loving relationship between a man and a woman is a beautiful thing. Pursuing one another, with marriage in mind, and continuing to pursue each other after getting married—to date one another—is wonderful. Love will take hold of those who let it. And love is meant to be expressed. Whether you’re writing grunge-techno music or trying to figure out what to do with the weirdo musician you just met, love will find a way, if God means for it to do so. This all sounds cliché and is a bit sappy, but in a world full of cynicism and divorce, I’m glad that I’m madly in love with my wife after knowing her for nearly a decade. And I’m thrilled that the Bible endorses me falling even more in love with her. Without Song of Songs, I couldn’t tell Kalene that her neck looks like the Tower of David—and that would be a tragedy. John D. Barry Biblical References are from LEB