Song of Songs 2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, he stands behind our wall; He is looking through the windows, Gazing through the lattice. NKJV.
Jalousie Strudel
I love food and pastry in particular. The thin elastic qualities of Apple Strudel pastry is a particular delight to me, especially when it's home cooked, as then, more often than not, the thinness of the pastry sometimes opens up like a jammy womb, revealing all the steaming seductive goodness inside! It tell you, when Apple Strudel is cooked correctly, it incites a green jealousness to seep from the curled lips of lesser chefs, especially if they are French! Indeed, a famous French pastry style is named after such green feelings, in that it is call ‘Jalousie!’ This particular pastry is openly slatted in such a way, that it intentionally exposes the yummy goodness of the bubbling and enticing fragrant offering, which waits so obviously wantonly inside. Don’t tell me that food isn’t sexy!
Who’d have thought that this pastry style would go on to inspire Mr. Van Ellis Huff, graduate of Florida University, to invent the parallel angled, glass slatted shutter, world famous ‘Jalousie Window’? Admittedly, Huff got his idea from wooden slatted windows which he observed in British Barbados, but the name and inspiration he got from pastry! Wasn’t it Elisha, who when in need of inspriation, cried out in 2 Kings 3:13 “Bring me a Confectioner!” I’m sure it was. Yes, this Jealous Jalousie window style, reminds me of the time I lived in South Florida, where most of the older squat, flat, anti-hurricane designed Florida homes, still sported the old style ‘Jalousie Windows,’ which were in turn, markers of an age now long gone, when the only air conditioning available was to open the windows and let through a directed breeze, whilst minimizing the access of hot sunlight.
In Bible times of course, windows were mostly small and completely open. Yet many, especially those higher up and facing outwards, were larger and latticed. People falling out of these to their deaths was a particular problem in both the Old and New Testament, never the less, the latticed windows of old, the old windows of a jealous kind, could be used to foster privacy, whilst giving access to cool breezes and allowing the quiet, unseen observation of approaching people.
In our text for tonight it is the beloved, the bride, who speaks of her lover gazing at her through the lattice. If eyes are the windows of the soul, then they are shuttered with Jalousie eyelids. Our God has jealous eyes for us and we should have jealous eyes for Him! This verse tonight speaks to me of desire, of righteous voyeurism, of jealous protectiveness. My friend, some of you need to make better use of your jealous eyes, observing only Him, allowing only the cool breeze of the Spirit to blow across you and make cool the marbled floor of your own most private soul. Pastry is seductive. So are our eyes. Let us make a most thorough use of the 'Jalousie Windows' which God has given us. He who has eyes to see, let him be very careful what he sees and allows to blow through the open windows of his soul.
Listen: - For at the window of my house I looked through my lattice, And saw among the simple, I perceived among the youths, A young man devoid of understanding, Passing along the street near her corner; And he took the path to her house In the twilight, in the evening, In the black and dark night. And there a woman met him, With the attire of a harlot, and a crafty heart. Proverbs 7:6-10 NKJV
Pray:- O my jealous God! I am betrothed to You. God the Holy Spirit, I open my jealous eyes to You, come and blow across my soul, in cooling and enticing, comforting and exciting breezes. O God the Holy Son, my gaze is fixed on You and in all my secret places, from the corners of my soul I gaze out and wait for You. O Holy Father God, the doors of my inner courtyard and the steps to all my inner chambers and open only to You and for You. Yes, Triune triumphant God, my eyes are turned to You alone. Amen.
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