Assignment #3: Lyrical Study on "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room": The Do's and Don'ts of Souffle Making

     I have heard it said that souffles are very difficult to make.  Being only an amateur chef myself, I've never had the courage to try to make them, but I have spoken with those who have, and apparently, preparing this French delicacy is no small feat of culinary skill.  Ingredients must be measured precisely, temperature moderated perfectly, cooking time limited properly, and multiple other seemingly trivial tasks that define the pastry's success.  One small mistake, one minuscule miscalculation, and the whole thing collapses, SPLAT.  What was once a delicious confection is now a disastrous conundrum, all because of a single irreparable mistake. 
     Relationships today are much like souffles: beautiful and perfect in appearance, but delicate and unpredictable in nature.  John Mayer's "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" records the last acts in a broken relationship which both people know is about to end.  The song describes the beauty of what was; how wonderful their relationship was, how perfect and enduring their love was, how devoted they were to one another.  In the same verse, however, Mayer describes how the woman treats the man, leaving him in a harsh, cruel way as if their "perfect" relationship never even existed.  Which, in a way, it never did.  
      The only perfect relationship that ever existed was lost in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned.  Since then, despite the overwhelming human desire for relationships, no relationship has ever been "perfect", even our relationship with Christ.  We are always having to work at it, and work hard, to keep a relationship healthy and strong.  Every day, I witness the little things my parents do for one another to express their devotion and to strengthen their relationship.  But even with all the work they do, they still sometimes have fights.  It seems that that is the definition of modern relationships: work.  To make a relationship stable, we have to work at it.  Now, of course, anyone in a relationship should try to keep it healthy, but what I'm talking about is overboard: working all the time to impress your partner for the fear that they might leave you.  This irrational dread of loneliness translates into a ridiculous obsession with the other person, and, like we talked about before, when a relationship becomes idolatrous, it falls apart.  
     John Mayer captures the real essence of most modern relationships; that they are doomed to failure after even a single, small mistake.  The song implies that unless the relationship is your obsession, it won't work.  As Christians, God is our obsession, and if Him and His love are at the center of a relationship instead of the work to keep it going, then He will bless it, and it will be good.