Love is physical—who knew?
Recently I listened to the This is Love podcast. In Episode 48: The Freelons 06.29.22, starting at 25:00, you hear this exchange between Nneena Freelon, husband of Phil Freelon, and their youngest son Pierce (emphasis mine). Phil Freelon, a world-renown architect, died of ALS.
Nneena: I miss the physical presence. Everything I really miss–the sound of his voice, his hand on my shoulder, his laugh, they’re all tied to a body that wasn’t working very well. Still I miss it.
Pierce: One of the things that I realized as a primary caretaker was that as he lost abilities, he relied more on the village around him to step in and do the things that he was previously able to do that he had lost the ability to do as efficiently. And I found that it’s really a blessing to be that arm that can’t work even if you’re feeding him or whatever, helping him shave, those actions, being his arms, his legs, or his back, was a really sacred and special responsibility. One of the things I didn’t realize until he went through this metamorphosis was that we didn’t touch very often…There wasn’t a lot of intimate, physical touch. As my dad lost his abilities, one of the things is that I was the only family member strong enough to do was lift his leg, and help him stretch and exercise…I had the strength to be able to push his heel back. It’s hard to imagine when you have a fully autonomous body and you have something in your back you can just move around but when you can’t do that it requires a lot of physical effort and strength to be able to contort a body that’s frozen and I had the privilege of being able to do that for my dad. It conjured a special kind of intimacy that we didn’t have before, a physical intimacy.
Nneena: When you say, “I love you,” you don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t have a clue. When you say, “I love you,” it’s manifested in the things you do and the things you don’t do. On a daily basis. Those moments of intimacy that you speak of–there was an agreement that he would receive and an agreement that you would give. And nobody ever spoke it. That’s love. But who knew? Who knew that you’d be called upon in any given moment to be that? You have to be willing to accept a gift like that. And it’s a tough gift. “Can you help me raise my arm because I can’t raise it by myself?” And can you raise my arm with joy and with that humble acceptance that you just spoke about–that it’s an honor to be able to do it and not make somebody feel some kind of way for needing that kind of help?
Who knew??
My dad told me “Love is action,” so I think about that often, but this gave me a new perspective. Love is physical. It reminded me of this poem by Teresa of Avila. Seems like God also says love is physical.
Christ Has No Body but Yours
Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
On a humorous note, the sentence “Love is physical” reminds me of our family saying “No physical!” When the kids were young, if they would start hitting or kicking each other, I’d say something like, “Stop kicking so-and-so.” They’d reply, “I’m not kicking. I’m just touching her with my foot,” or some other such technicality to claim they were not doing whatever I told them to stop. Finally, I would say, “No physical contact of any kind.” This got reduced to the kids themselves shouting to each other, “No physical! No physical!” But here we’re saying, “Yes, physical!”