I love the Song of Solomon. It's in the middle of the Bible, and in some ways it sums the whole thing up. Traditionally, it is read as allegorical of God's love for his chosen people—first Israel, then the universal Church by adoption—and also an image of God's love for the individual soul.

Chapter 2 contains one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture:

> Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.

> O my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the secret recesses of the cliff, let me see you, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and you are lovely.

> Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that damage the vineyards; for our vineyards are in bloom!

> My lover belongs to me and I to him; he browses among the lilies. Until the day breathes cool and the shadows lengthen, roam, my lover, like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of Nether.

I read that as God seeking after and calling my soul to spiritual union with Him, and the thought that the Creator would seek me out like that moves me deeply.