The use of the Song of Songs in spiritual direction is a significant research topic for two reasons: firstly, both the biblical love song and the practice of spiritual direction are rooted in ancient traditions; and secondly, the Song of Songs remains one of the most disputed, marginalised, and neglected of biblical texts. This article, by way of background, elucidates four aspects that underscore the value of an ancient poem for a contemporary practice, namely: (1) the Song of Songs tradition, (2) a recovery of the Song’s spiritual vocation, (3) essentials of spiritual direction, and (4) presuppositions for a poetics-praxis amalgam. On the merits of these contributions, the primary purpose of this article is to suggest a ‘spiritual direction lens’ to the Song of Songs that is intended for spiritual praxis. While the focus is on the human subject rather than on the text as object,¹ and is underpinned by experiential exegesis, the following literary aspects are deemed crucial in a spiritual direction reading: firstly, the Song of Songs is ‘the hermeneutic key’ to interpreting the Scriptures (Kingsmill 2009:10) in spite of the fact that it poses ‘the exegetical challenge par excellence’ (LaCocque 1998a:38); secondly, the Song’s leitmotif of love is central as underscored by the following summation: ‘Love is the core of revelation; all the rest is commentary’ (LaCocque 1998a:38); thirdly, the mystical aptitude of the Song is deeply embedded in the text as poetry ‘mimics reality in the hypothetical mode of fiction’ (Ricoeur 1995:240); and, fourthly, as ‘iconographic text’ that serves as ‘a window opening between two worlds’, the Song ‘witnesses to our fragmentations and yet offers glimpses of a higher unity’ (Davis 2006:176–177).

With respect to ancient traditions, both the Song of Songs and spiritual direction are inextricably linked to the Christian mystical and Western monastic traditions, as this article will highlight.² The Christian mystical interpretation of the Song stems as far back as Origen’s commentary On the Song of Songs in the 3rd century CE, which is also considered ‘the first great work of Christian mysticism’ (Johnston 1995:17, citing Lawson 1957:265). Spiritual direction, as a formal one-to-one practice, was founded on a monastic tradition, and is traced as far back as the 4th century CE, to solitary monks who lived in the Egyptian desert, notably Saint Anthony the Great (c. 250–355), the ‘father of monks’ (Tam 2007:11, 39–67). In classic mystical literature on the Song, of particular significance is John of the Cross (1542–1591) – Spanish poet, Carmelite monk, mystic and spiritual director – whose Dark Night, Spiritual Canticle, and Living Flame of Love (Kavanaugh & Rodriguez 1991) exemplify the kinship between the Song of Songs and spiritual direction. The term ‘transformation in love’, one of the key features of the proposed lens, is credited to John of the Cross.

Contemporary literature on the Song of Songs as darling text for Christian (love) mysticism is prolific; however, only a few works can be cited in this limited space: Arminjon (1983), Matter (1992), Johnston (1995), Turner (1995), Davis (2000, 2006), Norris (2003), McGinn (2006), and Kingsmill (2009). With regard to Christian mysticism and contemporary spiritual direction, it suffices to mention two points: firstly, that spiritual directors need to be familiar with the rich traditions of love mysticism in order to accompany directees whose religious experience is characterised by love mysticism (Ruffing 2000:97–100); secondly, The canticle of spiritual direction: A transformative approach to the Song of Songs (Lam 2012)³ brings together the Song of Songs, Christian mysticism, spirituality, and spiritual direction in a kind of contemplative symphony.

The Song of Songs tradition highlights various Judaeo-Christian perspectives that contribute to a contemporary spiritual direction lens, namely: the sexual, the religious, the symbolic, and the mystical. Firstly, as an ancient Israelite love poem, the Song of Songs was sung in Israel as folk songs; in particular, as songs of ‘love and love-making between heterosexual humans’ (Brenner 2000:162). In the Song, human sexual love ‘is given its highest acclamation’ and thus, for a theology of sexuality, the Song of Songs is ‘the supreme statement on the nature of sexuality in the OT’. Moreover, human love in the Song ‘typifies the divine’ and ‘typologically points beyond itself to the Lover in the Song’s climax (8:6)’ (Davidson 1989:18–19). Secondly, on a religious level, the Song of Songs is associated with the ancient Jewish expression of divine presence, the Shekinah, the inner sanctum of the Temple where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. It serves as a redemptive analogy for the Israelitic exodus from Egypt and is thus read at the Jewish Passover, a tradition that continues to this day in certain communities (Brenner 1989:95–96). Thirdly, on a symbolic level, the Song of Songs is the ‘holy of holies’ text. Rabbi Akiba (c. 50–135 CE) counteracted a profane use of the Song by contending that, ‘[a]ll the Scriptures are holy; but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies’ (Davis 2000:240). After the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Song of Songs became a focal point for prayer and pilgrimage and ‘worthy to replace the Temple as a means of access to God’ (Davis 2000:239–240). Fourthly, on a mystical level, the Song of Songs was ‘the mystical book par excellence’ for Christian and Jewish mystics, as they found in the Song ‘the supreme expression of the love of God for his community and for each person within it’ (McGinn 2006:4). Influenced by Akiba, Origen’s allegorical approach lies at the root of all later Christian interpretation of the Song of Songs (Norris 2003:xix). Astoundingly, nearly one hundred extant commentaries and homilies on the Song of Songs were written between the sixth and fifteenth centuries (Matter 1992:3), a major factor being the flourishing of allegorical interpretations during the monastic tradition of the Middle Ages.

Theological readings of the Song of Songs have traditionally been categorised under two broad streams, namely, the sexual (literal) and the spiritual (allegorical). Although the spiritual interpretation has been the dominant interpretation, a ‘minority’ of Jewish and Christian exegetes have admitted the ‘secular nature’ preserved in the Song’s love lyrics, subverting notions of a ‘higher’ or ‘transformed meaning’ (Brenner 1989:75–76). In favour of the spiritual, Christian allegorists ‘rejected the Song’s literal sense altogether’, and influenced by ‘Greek philosophies (i.e., Platonic dualism, stoicism, and the Hellenistic-Roman cults)’ they posited a dichotomy between body and soul, flesh and spirit, associating purity with sexual renunciation and the denial of bodily pleasures (Davidson 1989:2).

The 16th century saw a significant turning point, when the boom in biblical studies brought with it ‘disdain for what was increasingly seen as the artifice of medieval allegory’ (Matter 1992:5). Notably, the historical-critical method that divested the Song of its ancient credibility paved the way for exegetical and anti-authoritarian arguments and discredited the allegorical interpretation as ‘contingent and arbitrary’ (Ricoeur 1998:265). After the Lutheran Reformation, the evaluation of sexuality as an expression of meaningful human relations became a ‘major cultural factor’, calling people to live out their faith within the setting of a ‘worldly vocation – of work and marriage’. This cultural shift took away from the Song ‘its monastic paradigmatic character and its privileged setting for a correct reading of the Song of Songs’ (Ricoeur 1998:293–294), resulting in a preference for literal, erotic, and naturalistic interpretations.

Hermeneutical scholars have recently questioned one-sided interpretations that over-emphasise sexuality to the demise of the Song’s spiritual dimension. Ricoeur (1998:265–303), for example, proposes a plurality of interpretations ‘set within the framework of a theory of reception of the text’, and suggests readings that produce new ‘uses’ or the ‘reuse’ of texts that do not make claims to an original meaning or authorial intention of the Song. Towards the end of the 20th century a few authors ‘joined the chorus’ rejecting the dichotomy of sexuality and spirituality; consequently, a ‘cross over’ of the sexual-spiritual divide is now ‘in the air’ (Carr 2003:145). Reader-response theories and feminist approaches have also generated autobiographical readings with innovative, more nuanced, interpretive flexibility in critical work on the Song of Songs (Brenner & Fontaine 2000).

Within the contemporary milieu of spirituality studies, several examples point to a resurgence of interest in the Song of Songs and a recovery of its spiritual vocation, namely: (1) the role of the Song of Songs in ‘naming God in the present’ as well as the recovery of the great mystics, especially the apophatic tradition, to speak once again (Tracy 1994:44–45, 16–18); (2) synchronic approaches in biblical interpretation that favour the use of metaphor, myth and symbols which include a mystical lens for reading Scripture (Kourie 1998); (3) the focus on the ‘spiritual life as experience’ as enhanced by interdisciplinary, intercultural, and interfaith factors (Schneiders 2005a); (4) the suggestion that medieval insights be revisited and reclaimed ‘in grounding spirituality as a discipline in its own right’ (Frohlich 2005:65–78); (5) the need for ‘contemplative attention’ and ‘contemplative engagement’ in critical methodology, and the value of lectio divina in appropriative methods (Sheldrake 2006:2–30); and (6) ‘allegorising’ as an old, yet relevant, method of interpretation and more nuanced approaches to the Bible, including ‘poetic means rather than precise, technical language’ (Decock 2008:1–19). A spiritual direction lens is aptly located within a contemporary context of multiple, integrative, and contemplative approaches to Scripture.

‘Spiritual direction’ encompasses three essential components, namely: discernment, guidance, and accompaniment. Spiritual refers to the divine-human relation as the locus of the practice, a relationship that impacts on the whole person within the totality of her or his life experience. Direction implies the movement of the Spirit along a transformative path, commonly referred to as a ‘spiritual itinerary’. The practice is not prescriptive or controlling; rather, from a Carmelite perspective, the objective is ‘to guide persons to a deeper union with God by helping them listen to the Spirit who is the Chief Director of us all’ (Culligan 1983:9). To help people discern God’s ‘inworking’ on the soul is no straightforward task, as the spiritual journey is perilous (Waaijman 2002:874, 888). Therefore, the ministry of spiritual direction needs to be explicated in terms of timely facilitation, particular charisms, and wise cautions.

Green (1932–2009), a Jesuit who served mainly in the Philippines, observes ‘two moments’ on our journey when spiritual direction is particularly necessary: ‘when we are just beginning, and when we move into the strange world of the dry well or dark night’ (Green 2000:78). In the early stages of the journey, he recommends Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual exercises, because Ignatius ‘is a master in the laying of a good foundation’ (Green 2000:91). A particular characteristic of the Jesuit tradition is that it ‘focuses on experience and expects that people will be able to encounter God there’ (Barry 2004:3; Barry & Connolly 1983). The major role then of the spiritual director is ‘to help directees pay attention to their experience as the locus of their encounter with God’ (Barry 2004:35). The second moment, which Green refers to as ‘prayer beyond the beginnings’, and when a person ‘wishes to grow in the love of God’, he recommends John of the Cross, an ‘authority on the mature stage of contemplative prayer’ (2000:71, 91). Positing John the Baptist (friend of the bridegroom, Jn 3:27–30) as ‘the ideal model for a good spiritual director’ because he recognised his subordinate role as ‘the voice but not the Word’, Green considers John of the Cross a ‘friend of the bridegroom’ and ‘kindred spirit’ to John the Baptist (2000:10, 91–111). Given the resonance with the Song of Songs, the essentials of spiritual direction are described in sanjuanist terms, that is, according to and pertaining to John of the Cross.

Viewing contemplation as ‘the core of the Carmelite life’, John’s experiential insights on ‘the essence of contemplation’ and his ‘spiritual reading of Scripture and reflection’ have but one purpose: ‘arriving at an understanding of the transformative action of God in the human soul’ (Blommestijn, Huls & Waaijman 2000:7). The crux of sanjuanist spiritual direction is that ‘God is the principal agent’ in drawing the soul, and ‘if anyone is seeking God, the Beloved is seeking that person much more’ (LFOL,⁴ Kavanaugh & Rodriguez 1991:684). John places paramount importance on the person of Jesus, as follows: ‘we must be guided humanly and visibly in all by the law of Christ, who is human … Any departure from this road is not only curiosity but extraordinary boldness’; thus, with the incarnation of Christ as paradigm, he asserts: ‘God is so pleased that the … direction of humans be through other humans’ (Ascent,⁵ Kavanaugh & Rodriguez 1991:232–233). At the same time, he cautions that people ‘take care into whose hands they entrust themselves’ and be aware of ‘three blind guides who can draw [the soul] off the road: the spiritual director, the devil, and the soul itself’ (LFOL, Kavanaugh & Rodriguez 1991:684–685). Admonishing a rough and rude, as well as prideful and presumptuous approach to spiritual direction, John uses metaphors such as ‘the little foxes that destroy the flourishing of the vineyard’, a ‘blacksmith who hammers and pounds with the faculties’, and a blind guide who ‘tyrannizes souls’ and ‘deprives them of their freedom’ – referring to those who refuse to trust that ‘God leads each one along different paths’ (Kavanaugh & Rodriguez 1991:690–697). In sum, John’s contemplative approach involves an understanding of ‘true and pure spirit’, a loving and gentle disposition, ‘great tact and open eyes’ (Kavanaugh & Rodriguez 1991:696), and requires three essential spiritual direction skills, namely: ‘discretion, knowledge, and experience’ (Kavanaugh & Rodriguez 1991:684–685); hence the inference to spiritual discernment, guidance, and accompaniment.

With regard to interpreting poetics for spiritual praxis, a spiritual direction reading of the Song of Songs rests on three key presuppositions, namely: experiential in nature, hermeneutical in method, and incarnational in application. The Song, a ‘non-religious’ text that does not explicitly mention God, is essentially a poem of experience. The ‘religious dimension of human experience’ is therefore explored on the twofold assumption that ‘any human experience can have a religious dimension’ and ‘can be an encounter with God’ (Barry 2004:21), and God is ‘the deepest dimension of all experience’ (Fischer 1988:3). Since encounter is relational, the ‘religious dimension is supplied by the believing and seeking person and by the Mystery encountered’ (Barry 2004:25). Thus, in a spiritual direction lens, the revelatory nature of human experience takes into account the whole person: body and soul, sexuality and spirituality, the ordinary and the numinous, et cetera.

In terms of methodology, a spiritual direction reading of the Song of Songs is hermeneutical. According to Ricoeur (1991), the task of hermeneutics is twofold:

On the Song of Songs, Ricoeur’s emphasis is on reading rather than the writing of the text, an analogical approach that augments the meaning of the text through ‘new uses and reuses of the text without claiming that the analogical meaning was preexistent in the text’ (Ricoeur 1998:277); in this sense, ‘analogical transference’ refers to ‘a second movement’ stemming from the use of the text and not first of all from its explication (Ricoeur 1998:278). Similarly, as in the use of an allegory, which ‘reads off’ the typological sense from the literal (Turner 1995:107, 133), a spiritual direction lens ‘reads off’ existential meanings from the play of metaphor, mythological motifs, and mystical symbols. As the language of the Song ‘exhales another level to the one who has experienced that other level’ (Kingsmill 2009:5), this particular synchronic approach is not a reading into the poem, but rather a reading off the poem, and in no way alters its original content and historical context.

A spiritual direction lens is incarnational as it is intended for a lived experience of the Song of Songs. In this regard, Schneiders’s focus on the study of the spiritual life as ‘concrete and embodied experience’, and her explication of the material object and formal object (2005a:50–51), underscore the vineyard as existential or life project. The material object or subject matter refers to ‘the experience of conscious involvement in the project of life-integration through self-transcendence towards the ultimate value one perceives’ (Schneiders 2005b:6), while the formal object seeks to understand experience ‘as it actually occurs, as it actually transforms its subject toward the fullness of life in Christ’ (Schneiders 2005b:6). In the proposed spiritual direction lens, the material object is identified as the beloved’s metaphorical vineyard (the concrete and embodied), while the formal object refers to transformation in love (the process).

The Song of Songs is prism-like in the way it refracts multiple aspects of its leitmotif of love. As illustrated in Figure 1, four aspects pertain to a spiritual direction reading, namely: eros, the primordial language of love (in its organic and erotic use of metaphor); mythos, the yearning for a transcendent love (its use of mythological motifs and biblical myths); mustikos, the mystique of divine-human love (symbolic inferences to mystical union and communion); and kosmos,⁶ the continuing-incarnation of divine love (generativity and sacramentality of creation).

Intrinsic to the poem is the ‘phenomenon of inner transformation’ (Matter 1992:8): feelings of ‘longing’ and a sense of ‘fulfillment anticipated’ which express ‘the tensions of eros itself’, and the interplay of paradoxical elements that are ‘the structuring polarities of erotic love itself’ (Turner 1995: 84–85). To depict these dynamics, the yin-yang symbol is placed at the core of the diagram as it aptly represents mutation rather than stasis. Through the alternation of night and day, dark and light, stillness and movement, this dynamic effects transformation in the created order. On the level of spiritual praxis, inner and outer harmony may be facilitated by the practice of meditation and tai chi, contemplation and action, et cetera. Co-existence and complementarity in the yin-yang symbol imply that ‘a part of one is found in the other and that one exists in relation to the other’ (Liu 1986:6–7) – an interconnecting principle which is holding yet moving. The poem’s symbolic play and transformative dynamics generate a fourfold spiritual direction reading of the Song of Songs, which may be encountered as a deepening spiralling experience and as a developmental process, as elaborated in the following section.

The Song of Songs, as an ancient Israelite love poem, is embedded with spiritual allusions that are continuous with the biblical tradition, yet expand the interpretative horizon for new uses and reuses of the poem. This article suggests a new use of the Song of Songs in spiritual direction and a reuse in love mysticism. The new use is a poetics-praxis amalgam that is experiential in nature, hermeneutical in method, and incarnational in application. The reuse in love mysticism is informed by the multivalence of the Song’s leitmotif of love, as explored in the vineyard as a live metaphor (eros), an intersecting metaphor (mythos), a unitive metaphor (mustikos), and an expansive metaphor (kosmos). On the basis of these interfacing dimensions, a fourfold spiritual direction reading is formulated as follows: metaphorical, mythological, mystical and cosmological.

This article interprets the transformation of the vineyard from an initial state of depletion to a mature stage of deification, thereby offering an interpretive framework for transformation in love. Appropriate also to interpreting one’s own story within a biblical framework, the narrative of ‘my own vineyard’ may be described progressively in terms of the immediate (a living metaphor), the past (myths and mythological motifs), and epiphany (mystical symbols), towards a vision of cosmic harmony as glimpsed in present reality. Although the journey towards deification spans a lifetime, in the Song of Songs it is condensed into eight chapters; yet, day by day, the wheel of transformation is felt as a rhythmic reality within the ebb and flow of experience, shaping us mysteriously and calling us to ‘participate in the divine nature’ (2 Pt 1:4).

Positing the beloved’s mature statement ‘my own vineyard is mine to give’ as the raison d’être of the poem, the value of the Song of Songs for spiritual praxis is that it emboldens the vineyard as a sacrament of God’s presence in the world and a catalyst for divine action. In effect, as a unique embodiment of divine love, one’s existential project becomes an authentic gift to the human family. The generative impact of giving oneself in love involves sharing with others about the ‘universal vocation’ of mysticism: that ‘all are called to be in love with God in an experiential way’ (Johnston 1995:255). The theme of universality is consonant with the spirit of Wisdom literature which focuses on ‘the whole of God’s creation and is more cosmopolitan and ecumenical than the story of Israel’s salvation history that dominates the Law and the Prophets’ (Bowe 2004:38). Since Wisdom literature speaks to the human condition, spiritual direction finds a timeless appeal in the Song of Songs. Exum states correctly that closure to the poem would mean ‘the end of desiring, the silence of the text, the death of love’ (2005:85, 79).

The timeless and non-religious Song of Songs invites appropriation and contextualisation in every generation. This article highlights an integration of spiritual direction training, academic research, and intercultural insights. An example is the yin-yang symbol within a four seasons paradigm which depicts the poem’s transformative principle and its attendant tension of opposites, embrace of paradox, polarities of light/dark, masculine/feminine, movement/stillness, action/contemplation, et cetera. Input has also been collated from my Song of Songs retreats in Hong Kong, China and South Africa, where the biblical love song has impacted a wide spectrum of men and women of different age groups, ethnicity, culture, religious traditions, and socio-economic strata over several years. A spiritual direction reading of the Song of Songs is therefore consonant with the spirit of Wisdom literature and, given its interdisciplinary and intercultural approach, it is hoped that this article will offer fresh perspectives on the value of ancient wisdom for contemporary spiritual praxis.