Here’s the introduction from one of my term papers (my favorite of the semester) to let you in on what I’ve been mulling over lately:

Among several theses advanced over the course of his text, The Animal that Therefore I Am, Derrida argues that the history of writing can be divided into two classes: writers who have seen and been seen by an animal, and those who have never been addressed in this way.[1] “Being seen” signifies a recognition of the impenetrable difference of the animal without, on the basis of that difference dismissing the gaze of an animal as an other with no claim. Suffice it to say, he does not find the latter class to be an expansive tradition. “For thinking concerning the animal, if there is such a thing, derives from poetry. There you have a thesis: it is what philosophy has, essentially, had to deprive itself of. It is the difference between philosophical knowledge and poetic thinking.”[2] The poetic imagination, in contrast to the philosopher’s, has from time to time had the courage to stand in the gaze of the animal and to write as one who is seen. The “immense disavowal” of the animals’ gaze on the part of the philosophic tradition has enabled philosophers of all stripes to lump all animals together in a single undifferentiated term, “animal,” washing over tremendous differences for the sake of a convenient category for non-human creatures.[3] The presumption that Derrida calls into question is that the difference between humans and animals is such that a single, clean line can be drawn, leaving “the animal” on one side (in all the multiplied differences among animals) and “the human” on the other. Of course, this clean distinction between “the human” and “the animal” has borne profound conceptual and political ramifications—enabling the construction of notions of utter human uniqueness and justifying instrumental regimes of domestication, production, experimentation, exploitation, and habitat encroachment which subject animals, often ruthlessly, to larger human projects.[4]

The Christian theological tradition has played no small part in constructing the human-animal distinction as we know it and has brought a substantial ideological investment—particularly in the notion that human beings are uniquely created in the image of God—to the task of differentiating human beings from “the animal” in a thoroughgoing manner.[5] There is no shortage of examples of theologians participating in the “immense disavowal” that Derrida imputes to the philosophic tradition.[6] Nevertheless, there are perhaps resources (resources which may have remained hidden from Derrida’s sight) within the theological tradition for the subversion (or deconstruction) of this powerful (main)stream of thought at the foundation of Western cultural and political edifices. Derrida expresses a sense that the gaze of the animal, if it is written anywhere (other than his own writings), is written within the expression of poetic thought rather than philosophical treatises. On the basis of that intuition this paper takes its beginning in an ancient piece of erotic poetry in which animal metaphor features prominently—the text we have come to know as the biblical book the Song of Songs. This book’s place in the canon was a puzzle and perplexity for many Christian thinkers (and Jewish thinkers as well), but rather than label it lewd or unspiritual and ignore it altogether, by employing a highly developed method of theological exegesis[7] the Christian tradition found the profoundest exploration of the love between God and humanity (concentrated in Christ and the Church) in the erotic movements of the Song of Songs. The fourth-century bishop Gregory of Nyssa penned one such engagement with this enigmatic text in the form of fifteen homilies.[8] The presence of animals all through the text of the Song, and thus all through Gregory’s commentary, provides an opportunity to examine the conceptual interrelation of God, the human being (and the divine image in humanity), and a wide variety of animals. Does Gregory’s theological exegesis affect a disavowal of the animal(s) in the text of the Song of Songs?

This paper, then, ventures a reading of Gregory’s Commentary on the Song of Songs alongside Derrida’s Animal that Therefore I Am in an attempt to locate Gregory relative to the trajectory of disavowal that Derrida traces from Descartes to Levinas, interpolating Kant, Lacan, and Heidegger along the way. The critical maneuvers of Derrida relative to these philosophers will provide tools for an examination of Gregory’s text; conversely, Gregory’s theorizing of the interrelation of the human and the animal may also provide the opportunity to call Derrida in for a few questions as well. Though Gregory labors to disavow “the animal” (as a single bounded set) in his interpretation of the Song of Songs, animals continue to creep back into his text through a variety of holes in the fence he erects, troubling the purity that Gregory seems to be laboring toward. This re-entry of the animal into Gregory’s text, I will argue, is a necessary function, not of the presence of animal metaphor within the text under his consideration, but of his understanding of theological exegesis and the function of (animal) desire within his theological anthropology. I will proceed in three main sections and a lesser fourth: the first deals with the human “proper”[9] of clothing and the dynamic of nakedness, exposition, shame, and modesty, asking whether the bride of the Song of Songs is naked as an animal, naked as an animal, or naked at all; the second deals with the human proper of discourse (logos) and the function of animal desire in the economy of Gregory’s theological anthropology and theological interpretation; the third takes up the major question of the paper more explicitly using a question lifted from Derrida’s own text, namely, what happens between brothers (that is, human society) when an animal enters the scene? Finally, I will direct a few evaluative comments at Derrida stemming from his textual encounter with Gregory and the Song of Songs.

[2] Ibid., 7, 40.

[3] The tremendous continuity of agreement on this point among philosophers who exchange such vitriol over one another’s methods, schools, and conclusions is a matter of some fascination for Derrida.

[4] Matthew Calarco, in his text Zoographies, calls for an extended interdisciplinary inquiry into the genealogy and history of the human-animal distinction and the ways in which this distinction has been the conceptual underpinning for the mistreatment of animals. This inquiry might also unearth alternative conceptions of being human and alternative models of human relations to the many animals co-resident on the planet. Matthew Calarco, Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 140-41. This paper can be considered a preliminary effort at contributing to such a project.

[5] Derrida is certainly aware of this. Early in the text, he offers a reading of the Paradise account of creation in Genesis 2-3, suggesting that Adam’s naming of the creatures before God’s watchful eye (Gen 2:19-20) is a kind of prelude to sacrifice, a demonstration of the power of God and man over “the animal” as a class. Derrida, Animal, 16-17, 30, 42.

[6] Indeed, I would question the propriety of distinguishing the philosophical and theological traditions prior to the mutual polemic exchange following the Enlightenment. We inherit a strong sense that these two discourses can and should be separated; these alienated siblings of Western thought share, nevertheless, a common genealogy and a common stock of tools.

[7] In contradistinction from contemporary fixation on a single literal or historical meaning of a text (discovered by an archeological excavation of the author’s social setting, role, or intention), ancient and medieval interpreters recognized four interrelated layers of meaning within Scripture: 1) the literal, the straightforward narrative; 2) the moral, how the text teaches its readers to lead lives of virtue; 3) the typological wherein broader patterns of repetition or fulfillment in history become visible to the attuned reader; and 4) the anagogical whereby the text works upon the reader leading her to God by inciting her desire or mediating divine grace. These are not understood as four separate meanings (even though an exegete will typically focus on only one or two levels) but four ways in which the meaning of the text operates. Gregory’s Commentary on the Song of Songs focuses primarily on the moral and anagogical levels of the text.

[8] Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs, trans. Casimir McCambley OCSO (Brookline, MA: Hellenic College Press, 1987); Greek text: Werner Jaeger, ed., Gregorii Nysseni Opera, vol. 6, Gregorii Nysseni in Canticum Canticorum, ed. Hermann Langerbeck (Leiden: Brill, 1960). Hereafter references to Gregory’s Commentary will be to the McCambley translation, followed by the page number in the Jaeger (J) volume.

[9] A “proper” in this context is an attribute or activity that is used to distinguish the human being from animals and theorize human uniqueness. Historically, the propers which have predominated Western thought have been rational thought or language. Derrida focuses on another, less emphasized proper, the complex of clothing, shame, and nakedness.

My brother got married on Saturday. He is not a Christian, and after a certain amount of discussion and compromise, he and his fiancée decided to have a civil ceremony, followed by a church blessing. The church service was really very good in lots of ways – welcoming and warm, appropriate to the couple, clear on the distinctives of marriage, openly Christian whilst recognising the different opinions of others. But there was one particular thing about the service that made me very happy indeed in a wholly unexpected way.

I did one of the readings, and since they asked me to choose what I wanted to read, they got something from the Song of Songs. The passage that I read included the wedding procession of 3:6ff in which the bridegroom arrives perfumed with frankincense and myrrh, in a carriage inlaid with gold. In a totally unrelated decision, they chose to sing a couple of Christmas carols in the service, including O Come All Ye Faithful, with the following verse:

Lo, star-led chieftains,
Magi, Christ adoring,
Offer him incense, gold, and myrrh;
We to the Christ-child
Bring our hearts’ oblations…

Coincidence? I think not.

Monday night was three hours of raw emotion at Opera Australia’s Aïda.  We’ve only been to a couple of operas but we love the way opera captures the ebb and flow of emotions in all their unbridled power!

Aïda and Radamès are crazy about each other.  Problem 1: She’s an Ethiopian slave girl and he’s an Egyptian military commander.  Problem 2: The Egyptian princess, Amneris, loves Radamès.  Problem 3: Unknown to the Egyptians, Aïda is the Ethiopian princess, so that both Aïda and Radamès have deep loyalties to their peoples.  Solution: The couple will do anything for love.  Even before their lives are in danger, both Radamès and Aïda declare that they are ready to die for love.

The Hebrew Song of Songs also has an uncompromising vision of love:

Place me like a seal over your heart
Like a seal on your arm
For love is as strong as death
Its jealousy unyielding as the grave
It burns like blazing fire
Like a mighty flame
Many waters cannot quench love
Rivers cannot sweep it away
If one were to give
All the wealth of one’s house for love
It would be utterly scorned.

Song of Songs 8:6-7

Like the Song of Songs, Aïda presents love as strong as death and unyielding as the grave.  The opera ends with Radamès and Aïda buried alive, dying in each other’s arms.

Unlike the Song, however, Aïda has an end to its love.  Even though Aïda declares that the couple’s love will continue forever in heaven, Radamès and Aïda die.  I wonder if that’s how all great love stories end — with an ending.  From Romeo and Juliet to The Notebook, a love as strong as death always seems to end in death.

The Song has a subtle but distinctive refusal to acknowledge death.  Through a series of poetic devices, the Song takes a cyclical rather than linear shape, presenting love as timeless yet immediate, and constantly in progress.*  The Song moves in an upward spiral of desire and satisfaction but this finds no closure.  For example, the Song begins with its characters already in motion and has no real ending, instead recapitulating the image of the gazelle (2:17), an ambiguous verse in which the woman could be either beckoning the man or sending him away.  Yet this lack of closure is not unrequited love but an unending pursuit.  The Song’s love is always in forward motion, a love that seeks ever greater heights of love, a love that cannot be thwarted even by death.  This is love caught up in relationship with the Creator of love.

While Aïda ends with a faint hope of ‘heavenly’ love, the Song displays a love that death can’t get a grip on.

- – - – -

* This is based on Cheryl Exum’s reading.

“No one can adequately grasp the terms pertaining to God. For example, mother is mentioned in place of ‘father’ (Song 3:11). Both terms mean the same, because the divine is neither male nor female (for how could such a thing be contemplated in the divinity, when it does not remain intact permanently for us human beings either? But we all shall become one in Christ, we will be divested of the signs of this distinction together with the whole of the old man). Therefore, every name found [in Scripture] is equally able to indicate the ineffable nature, since the meaning of the undefiled nature is contaminated by neither female nor male….Hence the Song says that a crown is placed upon the bridegroom by his mother. Since the nuptials and bride are one, one mother places the crown upon the bridegroom’s head.”

Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Song of Songs, Homily 7.

 A friend (who received it from one of his friends) forwarded this modern day Song of Solomon poem to me this am. So, I cannot assign authorship for credit or blame.  That is probably a good thing!

 Behold, you are beautiful my love,
        behold, you are beautiful,

Your eyes are doves
        behind your veil

Your hair is like wholegrain pasta
         you make for the kids

Your teeth are like white alphabet tiles
         on the side with no letters
All of which have no food on them
        nor other foreign markings

Your lips are like ketchup
        with no high-fructose corn syrup
        and your mouth is lovely

Your cheeks are like cherries in 
        extra-cherry fruit cocktail
        behind your veil

Your neck is like Scurlock tower
        minus the parking lot
On it hangs Christmas decorations 
        just after Halloween

Your breasts are like two hamburgers
        from the children’s menu
        on kids eat free night

You are all together beautiful, my love,
        There is no flaw in you.

You are fascinated by religion from a very young age.  Your parents do not go to church, or say grace or do anything religious at home, but your mother insists that you go to church, first with your older sister to the Lutheran church where she was confirmed, and later to the little Episcopal church only a block up the street.  Your mother is full of stories of the days when she used to sing in the choir of a church very like yours, and she comes to every church supper and bazaar although not to the services.

The beauty of church, the silk vestments, the candles and incense, the language of the Prayerbook, the music of the hymns, makes a deep impression on you, one that will last a lifetime.  When you discover a Bible at home, not a child’s Bible with a few words and many pictures but a proper Revised Standard Version, you read it with the same curiosity you bring to books about Hinduism and Greek mythology and ancient Egypt and the Mayas.  And you discover in it more poetry, more memorable language–language that makes your face grow hot, makes you shift guiltily in your seat, the kind of language that you never expected to find in The Bible.

O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!
For your love is better than wine….

As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love.

How graceful are your feet in sandals,
O queenly maiden!
Your rounded thighs are like jewels,
the work of a master hand.
Your navel is a rounded bowl
that never lacks mixed wine.
Your belly is a heap of wheat,
encircled with lilies.
Your two breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle.

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is cruel as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.

The word “erotic” is not yet in your vocabulary, nor do you connect these shocking words with the paintings of a blond-haired, blue-eyed, half-naked Jesus in your child’s Bible, Jesus being baptized, Jesus on the cross, his muscular arms and chest and belly exposed, and the curious feelings those pictures evoke from you, the sense that there is maybe something vaguely wrong with those feelings.

The connection comes a few years later, as you listen to one of the seven Good Friday sermons your rector offers, on the Seven Last Words of Christ.  What dear old Father F. said then fades from your memory, but not your reaction: The thought that Jesus could be like your boyfriend.  You are only twelve or thirteen, and the notion of “boyfriend” barely has any sexual ideas attached, yet the thrill is there, the same thrill that attended your discovery of the Song of Solomon, the erotic secret hidden in the heart of the Scriptures.  The connection between the erotic and the spiritual has been made, and it will never go away.

Great sale going on at The Hub right now!

I will be taking advantage of this, and suggest you do too.

Go here, click on the video link, add any two items to your shopping cart, then type in the promo code ‘lifechange‘ at checkout. You’ll get $200.00 off!

I highly recommend Tommy Nelson’s Song of Solomon video series. I personally prefer Song of Solomon Classic (since that’s what I’m most familiar with) but the updated SOS series is good  too.

You can also buy materials from Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Voddie Bauchan, John Wills, and Kyle Idleman.

If your group has never taken the twelve-week dive into Song of Solomon, they should. Great stuff!

Ten days left on this sale if you want to take advantage.

Once again the headlines tell the story of a child molested by a “celibate” priest now suing the church as an adult. That money dropped in the collection plate goes to cover the cost of sin. The disclosures continue to find the light of day not only in the Catholic Church, but across the religious organizational spectrum. It is an extremely unfortunate situation, but I can’t help wonder if religions are naturally susceptible to sexual expression.

Sexuality and religion go back a very long way. I have suggested elsewhere on this blog that some of the earliest evidence for religion, all the way back to the Paleolithic era, is sexual in nature. One of the blatant aspects of our own cultural conditioning is that we can no longer see the connection. We inhabit a post-Victorian world, a world that strenuously repressed sexuality and removed it from the sphere of human discourse. One of my favorite examples of this is when the standard classical Hebrew-English dictionary (Brown-Driver-Briggs, for those of you who need to know!) makes reference to sexual activity in the Bible (and it is abundant), the editors delicately slip from English to Latin, so as not to offend the sensibilities of clerics and other gentleman-scholars reading the entry. This antipathy to the human condition can be traced even further back to the Greeks who felt that the physical body was much more base than the spiritual, or intellectual aspect. Sexuality was a source of embarrassment and perhaps even shame.

I’m not a psychologist, but it is pretty clear what occurs when strong feelings and drives are repressed for a long time. The early Christians who believed Jesus’ second coming to be imminent did not wish to be caught in flagrante delicto. Sexuality was to be avoided since time was short. When this became formalized and priests, probably very decent people overall, were forced to relinquish their sexuality, it was assumed that it would simply evaporate into the ether and harm no one. We have known for decades that this is naively wishful thinking. As the margarine commercial used to say, “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”

What's Mother Nature hiding?

Ancient sects were not sexually depraved. Stephanie Budin (The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity, Cambridge, 2008) has done a good job showing that the case for sacred prostitution in the ancient world has been grossly overblown. Nevertheless, sexuality had a natural place in ancient religions. Any number of nervously giggling teenagers who’ve just discovered the Song of Songs in the Bible know that! The problem arises when our religious culture refuses to acknowledge the obvious. We bottle it up and try to keep it hidden, but when it finally appears the price tag is very steep indeed.

by Onleilove Alston

Naomi Wolf author of The Beauty Myth discusses how images fueled by consumerism are used against women.  Wolf points out that the beauty myth becomes harsher  after times of political gain for women, thus distracting us from the cause of equality. As  Ecclesiastes 1:9 states “their is nothing new under the sun” because in the Song of Songs (a.k.a. Song of Solomon) we can hear the protest of a woman who does not fit into her society’s beauty myth:

“I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon. “Do not stare at me because I am swarthy, For the sun has burned me.My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me caretaker of the vineyards, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.”

The unnamed love interest in this Biblical text does not fold under the beauty myth but stands up to it, affirming not only her beauty but her humanity. Colorism is one form of the beauty myth that is a common reality for women around the world; Dalits in India, the color caste system in African-American rap videos, and African women using deadly skin bleaching creams are just a few examples of this social ill.

This video was created by Kari Morris and Onleilove Alston based on scriptures from Song of Songs 1:5-6; 5:7; 8:6b and Music “‘Til We Reach That Day” taken from the Original Cast Album of RAGTIME.  In this video Kari and I wanted to feature women who may stand outside of the beauty myth yet convey a beauty that surpasses society’s norms, we also wanted to show the beauty of women doing justice because “charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). One way we can fear or reverence God is by being agents of justice in the world, which highlights a true beauty which is not temporal but eternal in value.

As we seek to be women of faith and justice how can we debunk the beauty myth in our own lives and communities? How can men be allies in this effort?

Kari Morris a graduate of  The Actors Studio and Union Theological Seminary is an  actor, writer,singer and executive producer of the film “Two”.

Onleilove Alston is a student at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University School of Social Work. She organizes with NY Faith & Justice and the Poverty Initiative. During the summer of 2008 she served at Sojourners as a Beatitudes Society Fellow. You can visit her blog- Esther’s Call

The Lord only desires us.

Not our amazing skills on the guitar.

Not our freakish 3 octave voices.

Not how much time we give to Him.

Not how much money we give Him.

Not our little sing-a-longs at church.

Not how many ministries we can run.

Just us.

Everything else should be nothing but an expression of love towards Him.

If it’s not… then what is it?

He just wants us and hearts that will agree with His heart.

How ravished is the heart of God by just one glance of my eyes. He’s ravished by just one, weak, voluntary act of love. He’s in love with my small efforts to please Him. He’s in love with my love for Him. He’s love stuck when I come running to Him in my short comings and weakness. He’s love struck over, over and over again when I run to Him first.

Oh, How He’s in love with me.

The past few weeks/months have been challenging for me as far as grasping the love of God. So often I struggle with believing in the love of God.

You see, I had it in my mind that the Lord was burning with anger towards me when I showed up to the prayer room a few minutes late, when I didn’t follow the schedule I planed out, when I didn’t get things done that I said I would get done, when I break promises. I had it in my mind that He wasn’t going to meet me because I was unfaithful with the calling that He gave me. I had a picture in my mind of God burning with anger towards me in my unfaithfulness. So I would sit for a long time in the prayer room asking for forgiveness in hopes that He would come near to me.

I was so consumed with asking God to forgive me over, over and over again and wanting to ‘start over’ that I completely forgot that God is slow to anger. He declares, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth,” (Exodus 34:6). He delights in showing mercy. It says in Micah 7:18, “He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love (lovingkindness).”

I’ve been sitting so joyless in the prayer room because I was so upset with myself. I’m NOT going to allow the enemy to steal my joy away from me. My God is slow to anger and incredibly rich in mercy. He delights to show mercy. He takes joy in showing me His mercy.

So weather I’m a few minutes late to the prayer room, I don’t stick to my schedule or don’t go to bed on time… God STILL has so much delight, joy and love for me. Nothing can or will ever change this because His mercy is unchanging.

So my motivation to be on time, stick to my schedule and anything else I do in this life will be because I love God. I want everything that I do to be out of love for God. Everything He does is because He is so moved by my heart and my love for Him.

I desire that the reason behind everything I do in my life to be because I’m moved by His heart and His love for me.

He is so good to me… over, over and over again.

The Song of Songs

To look into and read Holy Scripture is like making-love to God, with God, in God. Reading and listening to the Word of God enjoins moments when we hear cries of ecstasy: “Holy! Holy! Holy! is the Lord!”  And, like any meaningful union between a man and a woman, the Lover and the Beloved share secrets that only they know about each other.

Come to the ONE Who is Faithful and True!  I thank God He saved me from all this confusion.

One of my favourite releases of recent months is the double Arbors CD of music by the 1970s supergroup Soprano Summit – much of it previously unissued. Browsing through the CD’s booklet this week, I realised that it’s 30 years since this small, but perfectly formed, outfit disbanded – though its members did get reunited in the 1990s and occasionally thereafter. Here’s a timely, 30th anniversary, tribute…

Soprano Summit was a band which, despite – or possibly because of – its lamentably short lifetime (seven years), has become something of a legend in the jazz world. Certainly, its albums became collectors’ items almost as soon as they were issued. Its conception – at a jazz party organised by enthusiast Dick Gibson over a holiday weekend in September 1972 – became a tale that the late clarinettist Kenny Davern and fellow founding father, saxophonist and clarinettist Bob Wilber, enjoyed telling.

By day three of the party, audiences were suffering from ear fatigue and Gibson decided that he needed something to wake everyone up. According to Davern, Gibson turned to Wilber and said in his Alabama drawl: ”Now, I wan’ you and Kinny to get together and play a duet”. The two, who had rarely performed together, quickly talked through a head arrangement of Duke Ellington’s moody and magnificent The Mooche for two soprano saxophones – a combination, amazingly, never before used in a working jazz band.

”We got a rhythm section together – by a fluke Dick Hyman, Bucky Pizzarelli, Bobby Rosengarden, and Milt Hinton were all there – and we got up and did the number. We finished it off on two high notes in thirds and to our amazement people just rose up in applause – 650 folks just screaming with delight – and it was then that we realised that we had something different.”

In December 1972 the infant Soprano Summit cut its first album, the only difference in personnel being that busy bassist Hinton was replaced by George Duvivier. Then, after a follow-up LP, the second incarnation of Soprano Summit was born.

The main reason for change was an economic one: as a six-piece band, Soprano Summit was an expensive package. The band also wanted to travel light, so the piano had to go. Rhythm guitarist Marty Grosz was signed up to replace Pizzarelli, who was tied up with studio work.

For Grosz, the invitation to join Soprano Summit was a lifeline – as well as a launchpad for the solo career he’s enjoyed ever since. “It was great for me because I’d been toiling in the vineyards – I’d been playing all the crumby jobs in Chicago and wondering if this was all there was in life for me,” recalled Grosz in a 1995 interview. “This band had a feeling of experimentation about it – and I love that.”

Grosz had already heard Soprano Summit on the radio and couldn’t wait to get to New York to take up his new job. “Soprano Summit was a sterling quintet, a peppy, interesting band sort of like the little Jimmie Noone Apex Club group with Jimmie Noone and Joe Posten on clarinet and Posten sometimes on alto sax.”

Grosz shared with Wilber and Davern a love for tunes that were off the beaten standard track. (He passed the test with Davern by being au fait with the Red Allen-Pee Wee Russell number Oh Peter.) Indeed, Soprano Summit’s basic groundplan was to be different and to make a feature of the fact that this was a working band with a varied working repertoire. In Grosz they also had ”a marvellous player who lent the band an entertainment factor with his singing and clowning”. Davern said: ”That was the basic sound of the group: two sopranos, or clarinet and soprano, and the guitar held it together like glue”.

The guitar was the icing on an already rather tasty cake, because the essence of Soprano Summit was the relationship between its two frontmen. Davern put it down to the fact that they grew up on the same music but both have their own views on how it should be played. ”Our differences lie in how to approach the godhead, so to speak. We’re all descendants of classic jazz. Bob has his idea of how it should be interpreted and I have mine. But together, it works.”

In a typical Soprano Summit number they would bounce the melody backwards and forwards between them like a football, with one taking a step back to play the obbligato and create a space for the other to lead the way with a solo. Then several rounds of musical jousting would take place, with each front man vying for musical supremacy – especially, remembered Marty Grosz, on their “big, next-to-closing number, Song of Songs,” a schmaltzy tune that Sidney Bechet used to play. “They way they did it, they’d uilt and build and build it – and people loved it.

“They would build up a head of steam and it would bring the house down.I don’t think either of them would have the horn out of his mouth during the whole number. They’d egg each other on, and try to outdo each other. Then, when they ran out of gas, they’d pass it on to me – and I’d be like a drowning man struggling to keep his head above water..”

There was always a balance between the arranged and the spontaneous, and the only clue to the planned nature of the programme was the fact that they had music in front of them. Indeed, Grosz pointed out: “They were the only band I ever came across who could somehow surmount the fact that they were reading from these charts. I thought it was good that they had little arrangements – otherwise if you don’t play together for a long time, every night in the same club with the same bass player and drummer, then you’re going to end up playing common denominator tunes. This was a chance to do out-of-the-way material.”

Bob Wilber was modest about the way he and Davern worked. “A lot of it was intuitive. We would find out what worked by trying it, and then incorporate it into our repertoire.” Their intuition about one another’s direction also meant that they complemented each other’s playing. Davern observed: ”Sometimes when the two of us play two notes, you can hear a third note present – a harmonic that suddenly appears, a richness.”

Although Soprano Summit split up in 1979, both Wilber and Davern, who thereafter played clarinet exclusively, continued to discuss their musical rapport in the present tense because following the recording of the Chiaroscuro album Summit Reunion (with their original line-up) in 1990, they increasingly found themselves being booked together for concerts, albeit with different rhythm sections. Indeed, plans were afoot for some Wilber and Davern concerts when Kenny Davern died suddenly in December 2006. As he had said, during a mid-1990s reunion, ”people still throw their babies up at this band, at this combination of instruments”.

Thankfully, there are plenty of recordings of this near-mythic band to testify to its ability to give the hairs on the back of the neck a work-out, even three decades after its demise. As the recent Arbors CD of highlights from the tapes recorded by the New Jersey Jazz Society in 1975 demonstrate, the Soprano Summit sound is as fresh, exhilarating and downright thrilling as ever.

***

MARTY GROSZ remembers:

“I joined Soprano Summit in 1975 for a concert at the Carnegie Hall. There I was, with my knees knocking together. Somehow, playing the Carnegie Hall is an unnerving experience. I had to put one foot up on a chair to stop my knees from clacking like castanets while I played the guitar and sang the Milenberg Joys.

“Around that time, we did The Today Show a couple of times. One time we were doing The Today Show and I was singing How Can You Face Me, and Kenny started mugging, pulling his fingers at the corner of his mouth and making all kinds of faces and obscene gestures. It was all I could do not to just give up in the middle of live television and crack up.

“I like that kind of thing in a band. I’d much rather they’d come out with water pistols and soda water bottles than those deadly bands where everybody sits there like zombies and the leader comes out and makes one of those deadly earnest announcements. In this band, we had a chance for craziness like Theatre of the Absurd, which I personally am a fan of.

“Soprano Summit was the only group I ever played with who managed to read music on the stand and not have it have a negative effect on the audience. Usually, when you have a little combo – especially – and the musicians have their eyes down at the paper, you lose contact with the audience. But, for some reason with Soprano Summit, they could surmount the fact that they were reading from these charts.

“We had these little orchestra stands and I sat in the middle – I was the guy who stopped Kenny and Bob from killing each other at times. Kenny was the outspoken one, and Bob was quiet – always thinking about the music; about arrangements.

“Soprano Summit was the band I actually looked forward to playing with. I’m really sorry it had to come to an end. Sometimes when Kenny and Bob were wailing away full tilt, and the rhythm section was boiling, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. And I’m an atheist.”

* The Soprano Summit in 1975 and More (Arbors Records ARCD 19328)

I, like the Apostle Paul of Ephesians 5:32, will quickly admit that I am learning more and more of this subject each day.  It is a “great mystery” but what we can in fact know is that we are to express love to our spouse in the same way love is expressed reciprocally in the spiritual realm.  But this is not quite where I desire this post to flow.  Desire: and intricate and crucial part of intimacy.  You see, you can’t be intimate with someone unless you want to be.  It is a choice.   We have the option.  All of this is true but there is one contingent point within that needs to be addressed here in order to fully revel in the splendor of intimacy.  Party A and Party B need to have a reciprocal desire for each other.

So let’s see how Party A (God) desires Party B (us).  In today’s hectic world, few lovers take the time to write a note to their beloved companion.  You just don’t see a large number or quantity of amorists.  However, unlike today’s lovers, the book of Song of Songs is one long love letter about the love that Party A has for and is reciprocated by Party B.  It has been said that the entire book is a love letter of how God feels about us.  Chapter 1 verse 2 says “. . . for your love is sweeter than wine.”  WOW!! That is awesome!  Can you imagine God saying that about our love, that our love to Him, through His perception, sweeter than fine wine?!  Verse 4 goes on to be an invitation Part B, His Bride, to join Him in the most intimate of places, just the two of “us.” 

Several years ago, as I was going through my own spiritually arid patch, I began to pray the simple prayer that God would reveal to me His love . . . for me.  I say simple, but as He and I have swirled and dipped (not always smooth and gracefully did we dance) we have encountered new depths of love together.  You see, it started with the worship song by Kari Jobe “The More I Seek You.”  It was that one particular morning, the lights were dimmed, the crowd around me was to a hushed din, and Kari guided me into that place that Song of Songs 1:4 spoke of, the bedroom of my Lover.  That day was the transitional moment, a modulation in my spiritual love life. 

Can’t play it?  Check this out The More I Seek You

Lyrics to The More I Seek You :
The more I seek you,
The more I find you
The more I find you, the more I love you

I wanna sit at your feet
Drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breath, feel your heart beat
This love is so deep, it’s more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it’s overwhelming
(From Top)

Chorus: 4x

“Yeah . . . great song” you say, “but what’s so transitional about that?”  I saw it as though one lover was saying it to another.  Not just me to Him, but as though God was singing it over the one for whom He was willing to let evil and hateful paid killers torture Him on a cross . . . in order to win my heart.  I, you, we, the Church, His Bride, is the object of his literal dying affection.  Those are intimate lyrics.  The heart that this song purports is one of profound passion and infinite closeness.   Many people have a mental block to what I am suggesting here, but can you imagine God desiring an intimate relationship with you much like a husband longs to be held to his wife’s chest, eating from each other’s hands, and drinking in each other’s sweet breath.  Wouldn’t that just be “overwhelming”?

Until later . . .

P.S. Wanna see more of my fastidious and incisive enponderments? I invite you to join me on the vectored dance floor of life as I muse on my journey through the terpsichorean edifice called life. Enter here.

And the young woman ran and told her mother’s household [l'beit imah]…

…And Isaac brought her into the tent of Sarah his mother and took Rebekah as wife. [--Genesis/Breishit 24:28, 24:67]

[Note:] The conclusion of the betrothal tale in this way creates a curious symmetry between the household of the bride and the household of the groom. She, evidently, is fatherless, living in “her mother’s household.” It is quite likely that he, too, if fatherless; and through he was bereaved of his mother still earlier, it is to “his mother’s tent” that he brings his bride.
–from Alter’s Five Books of Moses*

David Zvi Hoffman (1843-1921), an Orthodox German rabbi, is cited in the Stone Chumash* with a different interpretation of the first verse:

The Torah introduces us to Rebecca’s family, where it seems that her father played little role, and her brother, Laban, was dominant. In those days, the women had separate houses where they did their work, and since a daughter naturally confides only in her mother, Rebecca ran and told her mother about her encounter at the well.

The Women’s Commentary* notes that “the mention of women’s domain (tent or house) occurs only in Genesis 24, the book of Ruth (1:8), and Song of Songs (3:4, 8:2)…”

*See Source Materials for full citations and more details.
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Click on the “WeeklyTorah” tag for more resources on the weekly portion throughout the year, or on a portion name for parashah-specific notes. (The series began with Numbers; posts for Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus are being drafted, week-by-week.) You can also zero-in on particular types of “Opening the Book” posts by clicking Language and Translation, Something to Notice, a Path to Follow, or Great Source in the tag cloud.

The “Opening the Book” series is presented in cooperation with the independent, cross-community Jewish Study Center and with Kol Isha, an open group pursuing spirituality from a woman’s perspective at Temple Micah (Reform). “A Song Every Day” is an independent blog, however, and all views, mistakes, etc. are the author’s.
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Our Monday gym instructor just came third in the Victorian natural bodybuilding comp, qualifying for the nationals in which she will compete this weekend. It’s been fascinating watching her go from being a lean, fit looking woman down to 8% body fat and I’ve been intrigued by both the science and the discipline involved. Our class chats with her a bit about it and after bombarding her with questions this week, she offered to show us her stuff.

The point of body sculpting is basically to take as much fat off your body so that the full definition of the full muscle underneath is revealed.  There are a number of compulsory poses that demonstrate each muscle group and then each competitor also has a routine set to music that highlights their strengths. It strikes me as more like art than athletics. Our instructor didn’t have much energy to do the class with us because she hasn’t eaten any carbs in the last three weeks and, for the last 13 weeks, she’s basically just eaten 7 meals a day of chicken and lettuce. So it’s really all about how your body looks, not what you can do.

But the thing that really struck me was how sexualised the whole sport is. When the women do their poses, they have to wear high-heeled platform stilettos. On one hand, you can argue that it makes their calves look awesome. On the other, she could barely walk in them and when we asked her where she got her shoes from, she named a well known adult warehouse. Similarly, the women pose in bikinis. Again, you could argue that that’s so they can show off heaps of muscle, but conversely, they’re decorated with bling and tassles that suggest they have something more than a functional purpose. The competitor’s individual routines normally have at least some elements of suggestive dance moves. And then there’s the tanning, the oiling, the makeup, etc.

Of course, my instructor’s chosen this sport. She voluntarily participates in it and obviously she’s very dedicated and very good at it. But doesn’t it say something about our society that even women’s body building is partly about looking ’sexy’? There’s something in it that insists on the appeal of the female form for men. There’s something of an objectification there.

It’s not that there is something necessarily bad about admiring the female form. I take it that the differences between men and women’s bodies are part of where the wonder and appreciation of them comes from. But that’s not all there is to the picture. The Bible presents a picture of female sexuality that is profoundly counter-cultural. This week in Old Testament we looked at Song of Songs where both the man and the woman are sexually interested in one another. Both are sexually assertive and this is exciting and fulfilling for both. Appreciation is not the same as objectification. I suspect that our society confuses the two because we have not yet caught up to what the Bible has to say about female sexuality. And it’s time we offered women the kind of sexual liberation that the Bible does.

I was a binge drinker between the ages of 17 and 23, regularly getting wasted for the buzz. I was drawn to Christ at the end of that time and simply stopped drinking. Old friends asked “why don’t you get drunk any more?” I’d say, “because I now know the love of Christ and it’s much better than beer.” Here’s a second excerpt from CH Spurgeon’s sermon on Song of Solomon 1:2, “your love is better than wine“:

II. CHRIST’S LOVE IS BETTER THAN WINE BECAUSE OF WHAT IT IS–

Let me remind you of some of the uses of wine in the East. Often, it was employed as a medicine, for it had certain healing properties. The good Samaritan, when he found the wounded man, poured into his wounds “oil and wine.” But the love of Christ is better than wine; it may not heal the wounds of the flesh, but it does heal the wounds of the spirit.

Wine, again, was often associated by men with the giving of strength. Now, whatever strength wine may give or may not give, certainly the love of Jesus gives strength, and strength mightier than the mightiest earthly force, for when the love of Jesus Christ is shed abroad in a man’s heart, he can bear a heavy burden of sorrow. …The love of Christ enables a man to do great exploits, and makes him strong for suffering, strong for self-sacrifice, and strong for service.

Wine was also frequently used as the symbol of joy; and certainly, in this respect, Christ’s love is better than wine. Whatever joy there may be in the world… the love of Christ is far superior to it. Human joy derived from earthly sources is a muddy, dirty pool, at which men would not drink did they know there was a stream sweeter, cooler, and far more refreshing.

It is better than wine, once more, for the sacred exhilaration which it gives. I have already spoken of this; the love of Christ is the grandest stimulant of the renewed nature that can be known. It enables the fainting man to revive from his swooning; it causes the feeble man to leap up from his bed of languishing; and it makes the weary man strong again. Are you weary, brother, and sick of life? You only need more of Christ’s love shed abroad in your heart. Are you, dear brother, ready to faint through unbelief? You only need more of Christ’s love, and all shall be well with you.

This past Sunday, October 18th, Kelly and I spoke together at Brooklife Church in the third week of our series on marriage entitled “Happily Ever After?”

Our message was entitled “In the Bedroom” and, as you might expect, we were talking about sex and sexuality. Our message addressed the goodness of sexuality, the need for guard rails with our sexuality, God’s hope and healing for our hurts in sexuality, and, lastly, providing some practical insights from Song of Songs 4 on sex in marriage.

You can access the audio recording of my message at the Brooklife Church web-site here or subscribe to our weekly podcast here.

Also, you can view the slides that accompany the message below.