A hundred years ago there was a poem by Francis Thompson called The Hound of Heaven.
In it, God’s divine grace pursues us like a hound. It begins…
“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears…
… From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—”
Many years later, Duran Duran recorded Hungry Like the Wolf.
The easiest, most obvious, and certainly the correct interpretation of Hungry Like the Wolf is that it’s the story of someone pursuing his lover.
What if, in a momentary lapse of reason, we interpreted the lyrics as God pursuing us, similar to what Thompson visualized all those years ago?
“In touch with the ground
I’m on the hunt I’m after you
A scent and a sound, I’m lost and I’m found
And I’m hungry like the wolf”
We’d have to be crazy to think that, wouldn’t we? God pursuing us like that?
That’d be crazy… right?