{"id":5139,"date":"2026-01-06T08:09:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5139"},"modified":"2026-01-06T08:09:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:09:55","slug":"apocalyptic-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/apocalyptic-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Apocalyptic Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>
\u00a0
\u201cWill you go to prom with me?\u201d
\u00a0
For a young man, pausing awkwardly by his potential date\u2019s locker between classes, that has always been one of life\u2019s most anxiety-inducing questions.
\u00a0
These days, prom requests have become increasingly playful, creative, and even desperate, as documented by scores of postings on social media. Audacity and live streaming definitely score extra points.
\u00a0
But when it comes to over-the-top cries for a special someone\u2019s attention, no one is likely to top the French composer Hector Berlioz.

In 1830, Berlioz wrote an entire symphony to express his feelings of unrequited love for his dream girlfriend, the English stage actress Harriet Smithson.\u00a0\u00a0

It just so happens that Symphonie Fantastique<\/em> became the first great musical composition of the Romantic Era.\u00a0It remains one of the world’s most popular orchestral works \u2013 and can only be described as a very strange musical trip.\u00a0

The story behind it is stranger still.

When Smithson traveled to Paris in 1827 to perform the role of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s play, Berlioz saw her for the first time.\u00a0He was completely smitten.\u00a0She became his fantasy lover.\u00a0

He desperately tried to meet her.\u00a0She didn’t even know he existed.\u00a0

He showered her with letters.\u00a0But Smithson didn’t\u00a0understand French, so she never read them.\u00a0While\u00a0she remained in Paris, he rented an apartment that allowed him to spy on her comings and goings, even though they had never had a conversation.\u00a0Dude, you really ought to consider finding another girlfriend.\u00a0<\/em>

If only he could have her, his beloved Henriette<\/em>.\u00a0This was interesting, since her name was actually Harriet.<\/em>\u00a0But in Berlioz’s mind she would always be Henriette.\u00a0By preferring a fantasy name to her real name, he had clearly moved into seriously obsessional territory.

When\u00a0Symphonie Fantastique<\/em> was performed, Berlioz insisted that everyone in the audience receive a special program.\u00a0It told the story behind the music.\u00a0

He himself was the hero of the piece.\u00a0He yearns\u00a0for the love of his life, but she ignores\u00a0him. At one point (according to the program), he takes\u00a0opium to cope with his grief.\u00a0While under the influence, he tragically kills\u00a0his beloved.\u00a0Berlioz composed a dramatic scene in which he is dragged to the guillotine.\u00a0The blade descends.\u00a0You can “hear” his head bouncing twice on the platform in what can only be described as a memorable orchestral moment.\u00a0\u00a0
\u00a0
His death is then celebrated by a macabre witches’ dance.\u00a0In 1830, no one had ever heard music like this.\u00a0Audiences who were used to Mozart and Beethoven didn’t even know how to react.\u00a0
\u00a0
Here’s the famous witches interlude as directed by Leonard Bernstein, who openly suggested\u00a0the Frenchman had actually taken\u00a0opium in order to compose it: Berlioz: “Symphonie Fantastique” – 5th Mvt. – Leonard Bernstein<\/a>. At the 3 minute 15 second mark, one hears for the first time the morbid theme that is routinely played, interestingly enough, by American college pep bands when the opposing team is facing trouble. It has also become the musical template for more than a few of the horror movies you\u2019ve seen.

And what did Harriet Smithson think of all this?

She didn’t get around to hearing the symphony for at least two years.\u00a0When she finally did, and when she discovered that the whole thing had been designed as a cry of obsessive love for her<\/u><\/em>, she consented to meet Berlioz.\u00a0They fell in love and got married.\u00a0

And they lived happily ever after, right?

Actually, they quickly discovered they couldn’t stand each other.\u00a0It wasn’t long before Berlioz abandoned her.\u00a0He tried for the rest of his life \u2013 without success \u2013 to find the happiness he had always longed for.\u00a0

Psychologists call it “apocalyptic romance.” If I can’t have you,<\/em> the world will come to an end.\u00a0

Every now and then, we actually get to experience what has always seemed unattainable:\u00a0the perfect partner, the dream job with the corner office, the fantasy vacation, the title or award or public honor that will finally allow us to declare that we have made it.

But’s it’s never enough.\u00a0No human being, and no mere something<\/em>, can ever bear the weight of our overwhelming need to feel deeply\u00a0loved and truly significant.

Only God can do that.

Duke University theologian Stanley Hauerwas writes,\u00a0“The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person.\u00a0This…fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person.\u00a0We never know whom we marry; we just think we do.\u00a0

“Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change… The primary problem is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married.”

We always marry the wrong person.<\/em>

But we can still learn to love and cherish that person, as long as we realize they were never intended to be\u00a0the ultimate source of our happiness.\u00a0If God’s love is at the center of our life, we can finally let our partner off the hook.\u00a0He or she doesn’t have to fulfill all of our dreams.

That’s a lot to take in, especially in a culture obsessed with apocalyptic romance.
\u00a0
But, fortunately, it\u2019s a lesson we can learn at any age or stage of life \u2013 long after our standing-beside-the-locker days are mercifully behind us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0\u201cWill you go to prom with me?\u201d\u00a0For a young man, pausing awkwardly by his potential date\u2019s locker between classes, that has always been one of life\u2019s most anxiety-inducing questions.\u00a0These days, prom requests have become increasingly playful, creative, and even desperate, as documented by scores of postings on social media. Audacity and live… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[104,1050],"class_list":["post-5139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-love","tag-romance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5141,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5139\/revisions\/5141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}