I don't talk about romantic love because it is worshipful in its own right. I talk about romantic love because it is the closest signpost we have to God.

Whether it's the Beatles ("Eight Days a Week") or Hugo ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame") or Wagner ("Tannhauser") or Jimmy Webb ("Wichita Lineman") or James Gould Cozzens ("By Love Possessed"), the inspired listeners of the world have not failed to miss the Back Story, underneath all our 'narratives' and front stories, of the noble search for love and merger, the absolutely right and proper desire of every human person to merge with another human person. This Back Story underwrites every natural life. If you won't see it -- because

Yet romantic life is never quite right! It is always a little "off". This is because it calls the almost-Absolute -- i.e., another human being -- the Absolute -- i.e., God. Romantic love, when not subsumed to God, i n e v i t a b l y disappoints, because it takes place between bodies, which decline and die; and it takes place in time, which "must have a stop" (Shakespeare/Huxley). In other words, romantic love is an almost exact dress rehearsal of the Real Thing, but not the Real Thing itself.

That is why this podcast begins with "Eight Days a Week" but ends with