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| Brother Adam F. Graham |
by Adam Graham
Those four letters are a gateway drug. Click on any link
with those four letters behind it and one could find anything from
gut-wrenching carnage to scintillating sex. Typically, the four letters refer to
the latter rather than the former, ranging anywhere from a stray nipple to
full-fledged bacchanals. Some consumers of this content call it “erotica” as
opposed to “pornography.” Its solitary function comes from arousing the erotic
passion of the consumer, fulfilling fantasy and inspiring similar escapades.
Not all erotica comes in that graphic nature; much is packaged in more mundane
ways. A romantic comedy at its base level traffics in this arousal.
Why link those letters to God, our fount of everything that
is holy and pure? As Kipling said about culture, “East is East, West is West,
and never the twain shall meet.” God stands above this touchy, messy interplay
that is the pursuit of the erotic. Humans need it for biology’s sake and maybe
fulfillment too. But erotica and God do not belong in the same sentence. Oh
wait…I just put them in the same sentence.
Some connection exists: Cartman realizes that the easiest
way to write a Christian rock song is to take a secular love song and replace
certain words with “Jesus” (“Christian Rock Hard,” South Park S7 E9). We pour much of our emotional energy into seeking
new relationships, maintaining current ones, or dealing with the aftermath of
the failures. Passion burns as fire within us. Must we divorce our religious
life from this fire? Or, can erotic love become another dimension of our
relationship with God?
In the Hindu traditions, particularly devotees of Krishna (be
nice to my Sanskrit transliterations), worshippers can classify their love
toward God that relates their connectedness to the Supreme Lord. As knowledge
of the divine one increases, love changes forms to meet that knowledge. The
base level for worship is santa or
quiescence. This type of love recognizes the divinity of God, but the
worshipper has no intimacy with it. Krishna overwhelms the worshipper with his
divinity, but the worshipper continues on as before, going about daily life. We
might call it the “fan stage”—“Krishna is a powerful hero, great guy and all,
but I don’t know him personally.”
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| Krishna |
Some worshippers exist in the dasya stage, servitude: love in a vertical relationship. Just as
peasants serve the feudal lord who protects and provides for them, a servant’s
love reciprocates what physical blessings the lord on high bestows. Love does
not necessarily flow from servant to lord. However, a servant knows what the
master requires.
In the sakhya stage,
devotees become friends of Krishna, akin to the cowherds among whom Krishna
lives, and accompany him on his exploits. Just as courtiers and confidants have
the king’s ear, these devotees have Krishna’s ear because of their
relationship. Friends have certain privileges that servants do not.
Another group has greater access to Krishna. Some devotees
enter into a parent-child relationship with Krishna called vatsatya. Friends have us only for certain times, but a child has
constant access to the parent. Krishna knows these devotees like parents knows
their children and loves them accordingly. It works both ways, too. One avatar
of Krishna is Bala Krishna, baby
Krishna, whose devotees dote on him like a parent over a child. Who can know
someone better than the parent of that person?
Finally, a few worshippers reach that certain level of
intimacy with Krishna called srnsara,
an erotic love that encompasses all the other types. Devotees, male and female,
strive to become Rudha, the most beloved maiden of Krishna’s life, and to
recreate the scenes of their courtship. That pursuit proves tricky as Rudha is
betrothed to someone else. Yet, observe how Krishna speaks to his beloved: “I
brood on her brow curving over her anger-shadowed face,/ Like a red lotus shadowed
by a bee hovering above…/In my heart’s sleepless state/ I wildly enjoy her
loving me…Damn me! My wanton ways made her leave in anger. (Gitagovinda, trans. by Barbara
Stoler-Miller, 7:5-6). Krishna, Lord of the Universe, sounds as dejected as any
male lead in any romantic comedy. He wants Rudha and Rudha wants him. Yes, that
kind of “want.”
Of course, one might say (with a colonial Orientalist voice
[think pith helmets]), “Well, Hinduism has always had a penchant for the
exotic.” However, these verses from the Gitagovinda
sound similar to some verses in another book I know.
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” Song of
Solomon (Songs) contains the most erotic imagery in the Bible. Many
contemporary interpreters would describe it as a love song celebrating marital
sexual bliss, avoiding the intense (and frequent) allegorization of early
Jewish and Christian interpreters. And I agree with them, but the book contains
only one reference to God, in 8:6, where passion’s fire resembles the flame of
the Lord.
How did this book become canon without a strong connection to the
divine? It most likely did not happen through an attempt to compile a
“comprehensive anthology” of Hebrew greatest hits. God must be involved somehow.
Something about the love shared
between the lover and the beloved resembles the love between God and God’s
people.
Lovers of God must become the erotic partner to God just as devotees
of Krishna became Rudha. Bernard of Clairvaux thought similarly (well, minus
the Krishna part)--he composed 86 sermons on the book and only managed to cover
the first two chapters. The lover and the beloved share a deep bond and, to
keep it SFW, know each other intimately.
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| Song of Solomon by He Qi |
Hearts leap at the sound of each other’s voice. The two want
to frolic together amid the flowers since they both know the love they share for
each other. This is the same kind of love that happens deep in romance when all
you want to do is know that person more fully, which often climaxes with, well,
climax coincidently enough. Sometimes, that love burns into a lifelong
relationship in which each partner continues thirsting after the other. “Many
waters cannot quench love;” How serendipitous!
If we brought back the erotic dimension, what would it give
us? From Song of Songs, erotic love assures us of a God who wants to know us
intimately and individually. God would not love us out of a contractual
relationship or lump us with all the other children, but would love us because
of our inherent qualities and despite our flaws. Perhaps, it would make
(Deutero-) Paul’s household codes in Ephesians easier to read,
since submission comes into play not in a governance model, but in lovers
seeking to outdo one another (I’m still thinking on this one, check back
later).
If nothing else, erotic and God being in the same sentence would
recognize that aspect of our created nature in our relationship with God
without any shame. God exhibits erotic love to stir the soul just as erotica
stirs the libido. And that makes God NSFW.
Adam is a working on his Master's of Divinity at Vanderbilt University. He also preaches at the Howell Hill Church of Christ in Fayetteville, Tennessee and maintains a glorious red beard.
