I Dream of Love — Our Bible App

Day 1 of 3

My beloved has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens
and to gather lilies.
I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;
he browses among the lilies.
-Song of Solomon 6:2-3 (NIV)

Lately, I dream of love.

I dream of a love that moves music through my body. Luther Vandross’s "Never Too Much" washes over me as I dream of lovers invested in what my friend Troizel calls collective giving. I dream of flowing, full of ease, between pouring ourselves out on the altar of our lovers and drinking in each other’s holy waters.

I dream of a love that transports me to lush, abundant gardens—actual heaven on earth. Maybe the Garden of Eden, where we frolic carefree in nudity and indulge in our every desire... maybe even the apple.

As a serial dreamer with my head endlessly in the clouds, I’m saddened by the thought of resisting the apple.

Why, God? With deep gratitude and reverence, I ask, Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too?

I’ve made compromises in love for my whole life. A lover who is masterfully kind and creative OR provides stability. A lover who sees me in my Blackness OR in my queer nonbinary transness OR in my creativity and passion OR in my pain and unraveling. Often OR, rarely AND.

But why? Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too?

I dream of being loved into infinity, loved into the garden, loved into belonging.

Belonging. Defined my Radha Agrawal as “a feeling of deep relatedness and acceptance; a feeling of ‘I would rather be here than anywhere else.'"

I remember the Song of Solomon, in which two lovers make poetry of their deep affection and longing, The lovers continue dreaming, longing, imagining the pleasure of belonging to each other, in every way.

One young lover, in and out of a dream state, recalls the pleasure of her intimate romance with her community. They respond, in essence, “Go head girl! Take it all in! Dream it all up! We’re behind you! We’re here for it!”

Mmm, to love with such deep reverence and euphoria that a patient song of desire flows from me, while my people look to me and say “What a beautiful song. Please. Keep singing.”

When her community asks where her lover is, the woman describes how he plays in his own personal dream garden, yet with conviction proclaims “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”

Rihanna too. In "you da one," she proclaims her own dream love:

You da one that I dream about all day.
You da one that I think about always.
You are da one, so I make sure I behave.
My love is your love, your love is mine.”

My hunch is that belonging to your love comes in the longing for your love. And that is where I cease my questioning God about the apple and move on to learn to fall in love with the longing.

Longing. Mm, how sweet it must be to feel patient and grounded in longing for your lover. To grow a taste for each other, over and over and over again. To learn to luxuriate in not only devouring a yummy thing, but in savoring a yummy thing.

To dream. To tend our own gardens. To mutually long for one another. To belong. That’s the apple.

Dear God of (Be)longing,

I pray for a love
that blossoms in every in-between moment.
That moves music through my body — praise and worship.
That is curious, imaginative, dreamy.

That I may envision and create my very own heaven on earth,
and invite my beloveds to enjoy in its abundance.
That my beloveds all have gardens of their own.

That we tend our dreamland together,
Hands in soil,
Heads in clouds,
Tongues hungry
to enjoy the harvest.

May we find comfort in our longing, faith in the harvest.
May we contradict every love-lust binary.
May we find you, God, in our every desire.
May we keep dreaming of and with and for one another.
May we belong. To ourselves, to you, to our beloveds.

Kayla M. Walker

Day 1 of 3

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