love & literature

“the early chapters of genesis say so little of love between God and humankind or between the man and the woman but instead seem simply to imply the perfect naturalness and confidence attending these relationships: perhaps a reason might be that love as we know it always involves a kind of anguish absent from the pristine world. and so we read here not directly of lost love but of a new fear and sense of being uncovered … yet our overall understanding of humankind is that they were made for a loving relationship with God and others. once they are fallen, love is, so to speak, broken, not only with respect to God but also with respect to an uncomplicated expression in the sexual relationship, so that it takes the form of “eros” with all of its unsatisfied longing.” - the fall and sin, marguerite shuster