Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden!”
NL Daily Devotion for Friday, August 18, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Here the writer of Song of Solomon offers a potent physical description of his beloved’s body. It is a celebration of the gift of our embodied-ness. One might read it as reinforcement of some ideal of physical beauty to which we can never measure up, but I would invite you to imagine that every human body is beautiful, no matter what. Whether it is a human beloved or God seeing us, we can know that our physical form is delightful and brings joy to the seer.
I know it can be a hard sell. So many of us are taught explicitly or implicitly that we are unattractive or that our bodies are somehow shameful. But the truth is that God created us in God’s image. Think about that. It means that all of us in our full embodied-ness are the image of God, and therefore indescribably beautiful. When the writer of Song of Solomon writes of his beloved’s beauty, he is writing about you.
Do I see myself as beautiful? Why or why not?
