I'm not really used to using exclamation marks in the title, partly because my upbringing has led me to abhor all over uses of the exclamation mark. I still remember the correlation my dad drew up between the uses of exclamation marks and the speaking style of a stereotypical valley girl. Like, oh my gosh! This paragraph has so much pizazz!
Or something.
However, in this case, I felt that an exclamation mark might just give the effect I wanted to the title. Why's that? Because even though I have a tendency to hide any and all real passion as deep as I can, there it is. Hidden below many levels of alternating happiness and yellowness and quietness, there lurks a quiet friend. A friend who may be denominated as a Jekyll or a Hyde. Some days, he comes up to show a passion in what is good, a passion for what is most appropriate, a passion for the way things ought to be. It's kind of fun when he surfaces, though most people seem to find him a little unnerving.
Also hidden, though not quite as evil as the Hyde of story book making, a more basic type of passion lurks. It's a natural sort of thing, but I'm not really going to talk about him right now.
No, I'm going to talk about something amazing, that's linked to each and every one of our passions: our bodies. No, this is not a sixth grade movie or slide show about how amazing our bodies are, or even a presentation on general hygiene or the upkeep of failing organs (my eyes and hair, both very necessary to that part of me I refer to as self image, are weakening like a flute player running out of air), but rather the statement of something I've come to believe about my body in particular, and by extension, every other person's body as well.
Satan must be pretty darned ticked at us. If you believe in the story of the rejection of him and his followers as found in the King James version of the Bible, you'll know that he actually doesn't have a body. The more I think about it, the more I realize that we were all pretty smart not to go down that road. Because, spirits, as many people are wont to remind us, are not the most feeling of creatures.
What senses do physical bodies have? Sight, smell, touch, um, there's two or three more, I'm sure of it. Oh, yes, taste and hearing. Can you imagine never having had strawberry cheesecake? Oh, just the thought of eternities without cheesecake are enough to make me glad I went the right way. Even just a strawberry, fresh, with just enough zing in it to make you know your mouth is awake, but at the same time sweet and refreshing. Yeah, I'm glad I have taste.
Now, I'm not sure if these senses are something that are unique only to our physical frames. However, can you imagine what it would be like to go through an eternity without smell? The clean (but ironically dirty) smell of the good earth, just as the rain has fallen, the honest smell of saw dust from working on a garage or other projects that your father has put you up to do, the sumptuous smell of lasagna as you walk in the door, the sweet feeling of smelling home made cookies, the enchanting smell of a woman's perfume (if you're a guy. Girls, please don't be enchanted by other girl's perfume. You can like it, sure, but no enchantment.) and the list gets too long. It's awesome to have a body.
Oddly enough, touch seems to be something that our bodies just can't get enough of. As infants, our growth and development has been proven to be retarded if there is no one there to just hold us, to rock us back and forth and to physically touch us. As we grow up, we hold mom and dad's hands, giving hugs and kisses. More older still hormones take us on a wild ride of wanting to hold other girls' hands (or guys, you know what I mean you silly people) to kiss (at which point in this blog my face goes red, evidence of my own standing in this sector) and other things. Throughout life, one of the major ways of communication is a simple touch.
I've talked before how hugs can actually become a rather developed form of communicating. I should mention that one of the five love languages, according to that one guy who wrote the book "The Five Love Languages" is physical touch. Our souls, the conjuncture of body and spirit, cry out to enjoy the body that they've been given, to take advantage of the marvelous gift that we've received for having chosen to follow the Savior at the first. The spirit, something that seems to me to be less adept at giving hugs, sure does enjoy hugs.
And in my case, every so often the spirit demands them.
People need hugs. Go give them one. It's nice. It's even nicer when the person hugs back.
6 comments:
I love hug too!! I bet you give great one too ;) !!!!
Sorry for the spelling errors!!
So out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts about people who don't like to be touched?
Because I didn't grow up in a touchy-feely family. And sometimes I touch people, but I'm not a spontaneous hugger.
And I feel really weird when somebody I don't know very well spontaneously hugs/touches me.
At its root, I'd probably say it involves a hesitance to trust . . . but have you any other theories?
I find it humorous that every comment has been about hugs even though you wrote some other beautiful, poignant passages. It's incredible how we can take our senses for granted. I particularly enjoyed where you wrote about the strawberry. I could almost taste it. Seriously, those paragraphs about our senses made me sit back and think of memories where my senses were heightened.
And the fact that Satan hates us for our decision is proof of why life can be so trying. He will do everything in his power to make us regret the best decision we've ever made. Aren't we lucky we chose the correct path?!
Yes, I will comment about hugs too. I understand where Confuzzled is coming from. I love hugs, but for me they are special. I don't particularly enjoy hugging random strangers or even those I don't know well (or trust). However, hugs can bring great contentment. And so I echo your statement: Hug me, Dang-it!
I think the love languages are a little like the spoken languages we deal with every day, or maybe not every day. For instance, Spanish is a lot easier for me to speak than German. My brother, however, feels a lot more comfortable speaking German than Spanish.
The love languages are similiar; some of us feel more comfortable expressing ourselves in one way that, to others, is reserved only for when we're communicating with someone we trust or don't feel any fear of.
I also think that who we are communicating with makes a big difference. If you speak to someone who is awkward with gift-receiving, chances are you won't give gifts. If you speak to someone who doesn't speak spanish, probably you won't talk to that person in German.
That's what I think, anyway.
But how would you know what language they speak if you don't try? I guess that is easier said than done. Fear is probably a more crippling disease than MS in my book. Fear of rejection, fear of feeling stupid, fear of success, if you put your soul on the line. I wonder if some people are so afraid of actually succeeding that they settle for sitting on the back row. I have felt stupid so many times in my life, but on the other hand I have done some things in my life which took more guts than I have to do. So, I guess what all this candy boils down to is be brave, try new stuff, and learn from what you have done, and maybe in the end you will find you have made divinity or peanut brittle or even the smoothest creamiest truffles ever.
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