I have to say, the Julian reading utterly shuts me down, precisely because of “love.” That word has been so cheapened by decades of overuse and Hallmark-card saccharine, “I’m OK, You’re OK” spirituality that it communicate nothing but a vague, meaningless, valueless sense of squishy warm fuzziness and sentimentality drained of any meaning. As soon as we start pining about “love,” my spiritual ears retract into my head. Which is a shame because in its century and culture of origin, it aimed for something quite specific, powerful, uncomfortable, and shicking. Now, we’ve made it a security blanket.

I need to reclaim some other shades meaning before “love” touches my heart as religious language. Something fiery and protective, or passionate and generative. God “loving” the world means so little to me that I can safely ignore it as a thought-ending cliché. God “desiring” the world, “craving” the world, “yearning” or even “lusting” for the world comes so much closer and actually wakes me up.

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