Lyrics from the love songs broadcast on pop radio stations tap into romantic yearnings but promise more than any person can deliver. “You are my everything.” “I can’t live without you.” Sexual desires and romantic longings are a kind of debased sacrament. If humanity serves as your religion, then sex becomes an act of worship. On the other hand, if God is the object of your religion, then romantic love becomes an unmistakable pointer, a rumor of transcendence as loud as any we hear on earth…
Romance gives intriguing hints of transcendence. I am “possessed” by the one I love. I think of her day and night, languish when she leaves me, perform brave deeds to impress her, revel in her attention, live for her, even die for her. I want to be both heroic and meek at the same time. For a time, and only for a time, I can live on that edge of exaltation. Then reality sets in, or boredom, betrayal, old age, or death. I cannot sustain a state of complete absorption forever. At least, though, I can see in it a glimpse of God’s infinite capacity for such attention. Could this be how God views us -- views me?
-- Philip Yancy in Rumors of Another World
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