Love is....

How many of us remember the cartoon series "Love is..."? Really some very simple laughter giving and refreshingly naive cartoons that told the simple truth of love. Something that we tend to brush aside. Human love in all of its glory, human love that we have come to shun and place in the darker corners of society. The taboo subject that cannot be spoken about. Human love should not be divorced from its physical relationship. No matter what we think about the subject it is a foregone conclusion that any human being has some knowledge of physical love in their adult years. Whether this love is manifested as an appropriate response or as a misguided attempt to utilise another person we are incomplete without our physicality. If this is true than it stands to reason that this human side of love, the physicality of love cannot have escaped Jesus as he was fully human,

In looking at Mary of Magdala's story we can see the intimacy and eroticism inherent in the biblical story. The problem is is that early in the Christian history we have placed this side of our humanity in darkness. The result has been that women and especially women of note have been denigrated and used as commodities rather than as objects of glory and praise being the image of God. We just need to look at the reported interaction between Christ and Mary at the site of the tomb. John 20 gives the account but the intimacy displayed in the interaction as Christ reveals himself to one who mourns and her response is revealing. This is not a moment to be denigrated, it is not a moment to concoct stories and myths but rather a moment to understand the intimacy between man and woman that leads to the presence of God in love. It does not matter what the words are it matters the tone in which they are said and if we do not believe that there is an intimate tone at this point then we have missed the understanding (john 20.16).

Kim Grove's series of cartoons let us know what love us including the physical.

We also only need realise the crucial eroticism that is complained about when Mary washes Jesus' feet at the supper with the tax collector. How can we not see this moment as being an erotic expression of a woman's love for a man no less than the Song of Songs? The latter a book that is not read or not studied or not realised as being an intimate part of the story of ourselves and God. we lose all perspective if we do not understand the hold that love has on ourselves as we interact and form relationship with the other. Our Christian forefathers denigrated the physical in place of promoting the spiritual. Today having been released from the prudish bonds of sexuality we suddenly find ourselves in the midst of hidden sexual appropriation and using sexuality as a means (financial, power, or otherwise) to manipulate and denigrate. This is not surprising. Yet we still have not fathomed that it is the mixture of both that is required for our growth in understanding.

We are physical we cannot turn our backs on the physicality of love in the human. It is after all a part of nature. It is how we embrace that physicality that matters. Embracing the good and the ability to just sit with our partners, the ability to let go when our partner's die so that we can move on into new life (John 20.17a), the ability to embrace the other in wounded compassion and outward love when everyone else rejects us (the story of the Magdalene) this is what love is. Every physical aching moment of humanity not the disastrous monstrosity that we have created through exploitation, secrecy and malicious damage to other human beings. If we cannot embrace our wholeness and ability to love in the physical then how can we demonstrate the love of God to our neighbour as all we will do is seek to exploit, damage or seek power rather than love.