The above prayer is the Collect for the 7th Sunday after the Epiphany and is found on page 216 of the Book of Common Prayer. I love this prayer because it highlights love. What can we say of love?
Any words on Love must begin with God. The scriptures declare, "This is love, not that we love God, but that God first loved us" (I John 4:10). Love begins and ends with God. In the Hebrew scriptures "hesed" or "loving kindness" is a central virture. Rabbi Simlai in the Talmud claims that “The Torah begins with hesed and ends with hesed.”
Christians look to Jesus (Yeshua) as the embodiment of love. I would note one simple and obvious aspect of Jesus' love--he touched people and allowed people to touch him. In 1992 I was driving from my apartment at Wycliffe College in Toronto to St. Timothy's Anglican Church where I spent 10 hours each week as part of my seminary training. I came to a stop sign and saw there had just been a fender bender. The two drivers were arguing outside their cars. Suddenly, one man struck the other in the face with his fist. I've spent enough time in bars, both as a bartender and as a consumer, to have seen my share of fights. However, seeing this man strike the other at the stop sign woke me up to the brutality of such an action. The way we touch people matters. Love involves touching.
When I think of the times I've been most loved I remember I was touched in tender ways. In 1966 Edward T. Hall, building on the work of Heini Hediger's 1955 study of zoo animals, built the diagram listed below. Personal space varies but is thought to be 1.5 to 4 feet. Intrusion into that space without invitation activates the amygdala, that portion of our brain that processes the perceived intention of the intruder. Bill Hybel, the founder of megachurch Willow Creek, said, "Everyone who changed my life did so from three feet away." Love is intimate and happens within our personal space. Think about the most loving moments in your life and I bet most, if not all, happened within your personal space. Remember, any exceptions will rest upon relatively recent technological discoveries.
Jesus is the one who enters our personal space with only life giving intention, never to betray our trust, and whose touch is hesed, wholeness, loving, and transforming.
Shalom, Greg
Like the part about "three feet away" and the gentle reminder of the sacredness of being with a person. Also, nice circle chart:) Is it possible to have some of the circles widened?
ReplyDeleteTouch: Many of us know that touch has the power to heal. Years ago in the army in Japan, I caught some version of the Asian flu. It was awful but, fortunately, lasted only about a day. I went on sick call and the doctor diagnosed me and wrote a prescription—literally without even looking at me at all and, of course, without touching me.
ReplyDeleteI worked for several osteopathic health care organizations just before retiring for the last time. Osteopathic physicians (DOs) were for years viewed by other (allopathic) physicians as quacks, just a step above chiropractors. A major feature of osteopathic practice used to be manual manipulation. But the profession worked so hard to gain respect that some say MDs and DOs are now nearly indistinguishable. Now lots of DOs do not do manipulation (even though it may be very helpful). But what is still true is that osteopaths are much more likely than other physicians to lay hands on their patients. They still seem to recognize that touch can be healing.
Touch can also signal intimacy and affection. Not just young lovers, but even senior citizen couples often touch each other. You can tell a lot about a couple’s relationship by noticing whether they touch.
I agree that the tenderness and love of some couples is so evident and especially in the way they touch one another. It can be in very little touches, subtle, but in those little ways much is conveyed.
ReplyDeleteOn television some time ago I saw the transforming power of love of a different kind. Prisoners in jails from some parts of the country were being trained to work with abused dogs from shelters. Selected prisoners worked with the dogs for several months with two goals. One was that the dogs would become adoptable at the end of the training, unlike the millions of dogs who are euthanized each year. The second goal was that the prisoners learned a skill that could make them employable after they served their sentence. The surprise factor was the bond that developed between the men and the dogs. Each man worked with only one dog. Training included respect, continuity, responsibility, and a will to please. Prisoners felt that the dogs never saw the men as outcasts of society like humans did. A bond of trust, which had been eroded by abuse, developed between man and dog. It was a healing and transforming experience for both. At the end each man and dog had to say goodbye. With tears in his eyes each prisoner had to trust that they would take the love that they had found together with them into the future.
ReplyDeleteWholeness, love and transformation in unexpected places.
Carol Chandler
Ps. I think the dogs entered the personal space of the prisoners where no man had gone before.