Only recently a guy burst into my room and began to spill his heart out. It was a bloody mess! He had grown rather crazy over some girl or another and could not stop babbling about her awesome qualities. Though at first I listened cheerfully, glad to see my friend so in love, it soon changed. Soon I was listening sympathetically, almost pitying the poor guy for being such a fool. Not too much later I was listening disgustedly. He just wouldn't stop talking!
As I listened I caught a certain "vibe" in his praises of her. A very strange "vibe" which showed just how brain-washed he had become. While praising her he spoke of her beauty and of her many wonderful qualities but would prefix everything with a statement of how very "spiritual" she was. She's beautiful, but in a "spiritual" sense. All her qualities and virtues seemed reflective of "spirituality."
Is it just me or does that seem to lack a touch of reality? I don't doubt that her beauty can be spiritual and that her virtues or qualities are also spiritual, but, please, let's not overdo it on the mysticism! My friend and I are both humans. The girl is equally human. That means that we are flawed, and along with that news comes the good news that because of our flaws we now have room for improvisation. But at the same time it is worthy to note that not all of our humanity is flawed. A man was created to feel attractions, he was made to be aroused visually, and it is only natural to admire qualities or virtues in others. Let's not spiritualize everything, I don't think it's healthy.
I think we are too afraid of our animal instincts - carnal lusts, selfish appraisals, etc. - that we adopt a patronizing attitude to cover ourselves by proclaiming her to be "spiritual." Quite frankly I don't really remember that being done too much in Song of Solomon's. But for our own sakes, for her sake, and for the sake of the Christian society that pressures us we present her as "spiritual." The pressure of her being "spiritual" intensifies much more than if we simply accepted her of being "human."
To win a girl over by telling her that we enjoy her company or think her attractive and not adding something to make it all "deeper" we risk the appearance of being shallow. I say that when we refer to someone as "spiritual" we are really not even sure what it is we are talking about. It is such a vague term.
C.S. Lewis wrote of a spiritual Friendship to say, “Before we rush to any such conclusion let us beware of the ambiguity in the word spiritual. There are many New Testament contexts in which it means ‘pertaining to the (Holy) Spirit,’ and in such contexts the spiritual is, by definition, good. But when spiritual is used simply as the opposite of corporeal, or instinctive, or animal, that is not so. There is spiritual evil as well as spiritual good. There are unholy, as well as holy, angels. The worst sins of men are spiritual. We must not think that in finding Friendship to be spiritual we have found it to be in itself holy or inerrant.”
The term "spiritual" is, therefore, so vague that it can even be connotated with evil. II Corinthians 7:1 tells us that there is a filthy "spiritualness" just as there is a filthy "fleshliness." The text reads, "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
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