Intimacy is not something that can be easily defined. Early in life we are sold on this myth of perfect relationships. We are given an image of marriage as a fairy tale or friendships that never have conflict. Intimacy is the bridge that links passion and commitment. Every relationship has three components of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Passion generally is highest early in a relationship. All couples have to do is think back to the honeymoon stage. Early on marriages have a lot of passion. The honeymoon stage is a very intense period in any relationship. Some of our most passionate love is experienced during this period. Also some of our most passionate conflicts are experienced. The reason all this passion is flying is because we tend to unconsciously select a partner for how he or she makes us feel. We choose someone to fill the emotional gap left over from childhood. In time, this unconscious demand leaves both partners angry, empty, and fearful. Passion eventually dies without commitment and in order to link passion to commitment one must have intimacy in marriage. Passion and commitment can both exist and should exist in marriage. When we add intimacy to a relationship we can experience passionate commitment. What person does not want to experience passionate commitment? A commitment that lifts the relationship on a level that no one knew existed. It is this type of commitment that is described in the Song of Solomon.
The song belongs to a tradition of love poetry found in other places in the Near East. It represents an ideal of love. It shows a relationship charged with erotic energy. Love in the Song of Solomon is seen as a communion of souls. For the two lovers, love becomes a mode of perception. When the two lovers look at each other they see a world of their own making. It is a Song describing a man and woman in unashamed intimacy. The Song moves from the experience of intense longing to that of blissful enjoyment, and then to longing once more. The woman seeks her absent love and finds him, only to lose him and seek him again. The lovers are separated from each other, joined in an ecstatic embrace, and then apart once again. The Song moves between presence and absence, possession and loss, exhilaration and dejection. Everything about this love is mutual. Both man and woman move from one emotion to the other.
The woman says to her lover, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, in a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of one’s house, it would be utterly scorned” (Song of Solomon 8: 6 – 7).
A young warrior, a beautiful princess when making love, together they confront death. Love is as strong as death. Could it be possible that the love between two people is a defiant act against death? Love is a challenge to death. In Hebrew the phrase “a raging flame” can also be understood as “a flame of Yahweh himself.” Passion and intimacy is God’s idea. Intimacy starts with God.
Intimacy is about strength. Intimacy is the offer our strength to the person we love. To offer our strength to the person we are passionate about means that we are willing to go to battle for her. It means that she is ready to stand up for her man. To offer a friend our strength is to reassure them we are with them when they struggle. Offering our strength to another person is risky. We take the risk of self-disclosure. It is allowing our partner to know our fears and our dreams and our weaknesses. In order to know your strength and have it to offer we must be aware of our weaknesses. Revealing our weaknesses is a humbling experience and one that many men are not willing to take.
Men we cannot have the princess without the cost. Ladies, you cannot have the warrior with the cost. Men, we cannot have the joys of the beauty without willing to fight. Ladies, you cannot know the joy of companionship without a fight. A lot of people today want love without the risk, want passion without commitment, want intimacy without demonstrating strength. What they get is a one night stand of weak, shallow, and disconnectedness and we are not talking about college students on Spring Break but marriage couples who have been together for twenty-five years.
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