Love Languages: Revelation: Word and Gesture

Philosophy and Natural Theology paint a complete picture of the role of gestures in human life, and yet we are free to wonder if the role of gestures stops there.  What if the Creator of our soul took it upon Himself to make Himself known to His Creatures?  Discovering the existence of God from an analysis of our experience, from our experience of love, does not give us a very satisfying knowledge of who or what God is.  According to the knowledge of God that we can grasp in the extension of our experience, even our affirmations are qualified by a kind of negation.  All the good things we've ever experienced contain some kind of limit.  We have no experience of an infinite and perfect good - and at the same time we recognize that what is good is not limited in essence, that though we experience only limited goods nothing about the nature of goodness implies a limit.  We are all looking for a perfect good at some level, some are looking for the perfect house, others the perfect man, others perfect health, others the perfect religion.  How we deal with the fact that we never experience a perfect good will impact our happiness, so it is pretty important.  At any rate, goodness is not limited in itself, it is always limited by something else: by conditions imposed by matter and the material world.

If there were some way to know God more personally we would certainly benefit from it.  The knowledge of God that a philosopher can have is poor, but already something wonderful.  If God were to reveal Himself, what He is expecting from us, why He created us, etc. the philosopher would certainly be intrigued.  There are different religious traditions, but each claims to have received some kind of revelation - by a prophet, or an experience, or an illumination, or a voice.  The Christian faith is no different.  The Christian faith stands upon the reception of the living Word of God as received and transmitted by the Apostles.  The Bible is filled with divine words, words whose primary source is God Himself.  According to St. Augustine, the Holy Spirit is the voice of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is the presence of God we recognize when we hear the Word of God - opening our minds and hearts to receive the Word of God Himself into our hearts and our lives.  So the revelation of God is God speaking directly to the hearts of those who "hear with the heart" as it were.  The revelation of God is the illumination of the human intellect by the light of the Word of God by means of the human word.  The word of God is not simply information about God, the Word of God is God: and when I receive the Word of God as it truly is, the light of God Himself enlightens me.  So every word of God recorded in the bible is able to establish communion between my intellect and the divine Logos, every word of God is essentially capable of revealing the mystery of God, His mysterious presence.  Hearing the Word of God allows me to come into a living contact with the mystery of God.

It is for this reason that the primary exercise of Christian faith is contemplative.  The Christian life is primarily a personal encounter with God through His Word.  So God's revealing Himself through his Word is certainly a gesture, and it is like a gesture of quality time and presence.  Even though this gesture, as such, indicates that God is truly interested in His creatures enough to engage with them, the actual content of what God says and reveals is not simply, "I love you," or "You are precious to me."  The Word of God cannot be reduced to merely the words of affirmation it contains - the Word of God and Revelation are much more diverse than that in terms of content.  The Word of God appeals to our intellect first and foremost, referring or directing our minds to the one who is speaking, who compels us to open our hearts and listen deeply.  The order in Revelation is from truth to love, with each revealed truth aimed at a growth in love.  But each truth must be welcomed and accepted before it can cause a growth in love.  It is by a gesture that the ultimate dimension of God's love is exposed.  In the Old Testament there are passages that indicate God's relationship with Israel using human gestures.  In the New Testament, in Jesus Christ the Word made flesh, the gestures of God are both fully human and fully divine.  So, ultimately, the gestures of God in Jesus Christ reveal the extent of God's  love for us.  Jesus' death on the cross is not just the fulfillment of divine justice, it is a revelation, a gesture, of extreme love.  And following this gesture are the words of Jesus, "I thirst," which reveal how much further Jesus' love goes even beyond the laying down of his life for us.  As though even His death, the handing over of His life to us, could not express the full extent of His love.

In the life of Christ, there are gestures that Jesus himself explains - the washing of the feet at the Last Supper for example - and there are gestures that do not come with an explanation - when Christ lowers himself to write in the sand with His finger for example.  The first has a revealed meaning which comes from the Word Himself, whereas the second has its meaning straight from the Word made flesh, the incarnation.  This second aspect of revelation by the gestures of Christ is specifically New Testament.  In The Old Testament, the gestures of prophets that have a divine meaning rely on the word of God in order to communicate/reveal this meaning.

Love Languages: Adoration and Creation

This next approach to the gestures or languages of love is still philosophical in nature, but moves beyond, or rather to the core of our experience.  There is a lot which should be developed here, and some conclusions I throw out there merit a much longer discussion, but my intention is merely to suggest what gestures we find in Natural Theology.  Already, for example, the very affirmation that a Natural Theology even exists may seem like a pretty substantial conclusion.  And you are correct, the existence of Natural Theology depends upon the discovery of God's existence - and few are they who have discovered the existence of God independently from an attitude of faith.  Indeed, the existence of God is not evident and we cannot experience God strictly speaking.  To add to this difficulty, Atheism has become a tolerated and even respected position in modern society.  But even Atheists ought to respect the potential good that could come from a dialog in Natural Theology.  Today, the objection to God's existence sometimes points to the violence and intolerance of religions and religious persons who claim to act "in the name of God."  If organized religion has that effect on people, we would be better off without it.  The benefits of Natural Theology are to be found, in this case, in its capacity to allow dialog between organized religions.  Without making a definitive pronouncement upon God's existence, the human intellect can still appreciate and adhere to conditional statements.  "If God exists..." he is necessarily all-powerful, etc.  Atheists could use Natural Theology as a platform to encourage peace between religious organizations.  But in any case, my purpose is not political in nature.

One of the other currents that influences the way people think in today's world is something called positivism.  This is the idea that only the visible, sensible, experimental, and therefore material exists.  Anything invisible is non-existent, abstract, or metaphorical.  You cannot see God, therefore he does not exist - and if he does not exist, one shouldn't spend their life as though he did.  Just as one does not live their life as though unicorns exist.

In order to rediscover the validity of claiming that invisible realities can and do exist, it would be useful to begin with invisible realities closer to our experience.  If God exists, he is not immediately obvious - and even the signs of his existence are inconclusive and provide little evidence.  So, without jumping into the signs (or jumping to conclusions), I want instead to look at the other invisible realities we can discover from our experience.

We all have some experience of work, either of making something or of cooperation.  Most people also have some experience of art.  We recognize music, or paintings, or sculptures, and maybe we are artistically inclined ourselves.  Were does art come from?  What is the source of art?  Art is clearly more than just random activity.  Even Pollock was very methodical in the realization of his - seemingly - random and formless paintings.  But method is not the source of art either.  Modern robots have been programmed to draw or paint methodically, producing paintings where even the subjects are not the mere reproduction of previous works.  But the true genius of an artist is not the originality of his subject-matter, nor is it the perfection of his method, it is the originality of his idea which implies something unique about his method.  An artist is able to give birth to his idea, he is able to make visible something that would otherwise remain hidden.  Without Leonardo da Vinci, we would haven ever seen the Mona Lisa.  The idea behind a work of art exists as an invisible source before the artist begins his work.  This is the first example of the existence of something invisible.

Along with the idea we discover as source of a work of art, we can easily distinguish between matter and form in art as well.  A statue has both form and matter.  A statue is visually recognizable - has a form - and is made of something - wood or marble, etc.  The matter renders the form visible, sensible.  So the idea behind a work of art implies a knowledge of the matter used, but is itself a formal principle.  The idea is the source of the artwork's form, not the matter - the matter is given, it is what is provided.  So, an idea is a formal principle, in the line of the formal cause.

Art is not the only kind of reality with matter and form.  Matter and form are found in all the realities we experience.  But the form is not always from an idea - the source of any given reality is not always an idea.  For example, wood is both matter and form without needing any kind of artistic transformation.  Wood as matter can undergo change, and is capable of being transformed.  Wood as form has certain qualities or determinations such as its color, its fibrous nature, its smell, the sound it makes when it is struck.  That is all pretty clear and evident for simple physical realities, but what can we say about more complex ones?  What is a cat made of ? What is it's form?  What makes this particular cat, "fluffy," a real cat?

An artist cannot make a cat.  He can paint a picture of a cat, he can make a statue of a cat, but the idea of a cat is not the form of a cat.  Moder science has become more artistically obsessed in the biological realm, and the attempts to do things such as making animals are becoming commonplace.  Without trying to respond to the question of whether or not science will be able to transform objects or particles into organisms, I'd like to point out at the very least the radical difference between a work of art and a living being, between the form of a work of art and the form of a living being.  Is matter the root cause of life?  Is the correct material configuration of a body what causes it to live?  Or is it just a condition for life?

To understand what causes life, we must first look at our experience.  First remark: we do not experience life as such, we have the experience of breathing, of walking, of looking around, of reading, of thinking. For us, these experiences, among others, describe what we generically refer to as life.  What we do have the experience of, more specifically, is what we call vital operations.  Second remark: we only experience our own vital operations.  Both objectively and subjectively, only I have the experience of my vital operations, and my vital operations are the only ones I actually experience.  So if I want to discover the cause and source of life, I must look for the cause and source of vital operations - and not just any vital operations, but my own vital operations.  What is the cause of my breathing?  What is the cause of my walking?  What is the cause of my seeing?  What is the cause of my knowing?  What is the cause of my loving?  Through my experience of my body, I understand that different organs are implied in these different vital operations, and at the same time I myself am the cause of these vital operations.  Though these operations are diverse, the same reality - myself - is always the cause.  These operation are united, though they are radically different.  The radical source of my breathing is the same as the radical source of my seeing and thinking: it is always me.  This radical source of all my vital operations is my soul.  I discover this source as what my diverse vital operations have in common.  It is not simply the synthesis of all these vital operations realized by my body - the vital operation localized in the organ of the eye is drastically different from the vital operation located in my lungs.  I can breathe whether or not my eyes are open.  I can see even when I hold my breath under water.  What seeing is to the eye, the soul is to the body.  What breathing is to the lungs (and the heart), the soul is to the whole body.  Discovering the soul as cause and principle of the living being requires a discovery of the radical source of my own vital operations.

For the sake of brevity, and to come quickly to my subject, looking for the source of the soul, the origin of our vital source, reveals a hidden actor.  Our vital operations of thought and love, which provides us with our personal dignity, autonomy, and sense of purpose cannot be rooted in a materially generated source.  Our soul's spiritual operations reveal the necessary intervention of a third party in its generation. The analysis of the activity of our intellect reveals that it is not rooted in an organ of the body, it is directly rooted in our soul, and cannot therefore be reproduced through material generation.  The source of the spirit of man is not his parents.  Though a man is born resembling his parents, he does not necessarily resemble them spiritually.  Sometimes, an intelligent father has a stupid son, and sometimes it is the other way around.  We can be influenced by the nature of our parents, but it does not determine us completely.  so where does the human spirit come from?   Where does our spiritual soul come from?

There is a special gaze of the creator upon human generation.  The existence of the human soul implies an intervention by a being who can create spirit from nothing.  So there is, in the life of every man and woman a special gesture of the Creator which becomes source of spiritual life in them.  This gesture has an effect on the body because the human body participates in spiritual activities.  As the spiritual soul of man is not rooted in the matter of his body, it is directly in the hand of God.  This is true to such an extent that I can affirm without hesitation that if I exist, it is because the Creator wills it.  The Creator's act of creation continues and is actual as long as I exist - and my existence does not directly depend upon my body.  Before I existed, I was loved by the Creator of my soul, and it was the Creator's love for me that cause me to exist.  I do not begin to exist as one possibility among an infinity.  I begin to exist because God finds me attractive.  And rediscovering that I am attractive to God in my very existence can rekindle my awe and appreciation for God.  This gesture of God is already the gift of Himself.  God communicates a share, a participation in spiritual life to his human creatures.  We resemble the Creator more than we resemble our own parents and family, and this resemblance is spiritual in nature.  God's greatest joy is to contemplate the source of being, a contemplation that He enjoys superabundantly and ceaselessly.  God's gesture of creation, creation of the spiritual soul of man, gives man the capacity to rejoice in the contemplation of the source of his own being.

This movement of the soul, this interior gaze which recognizes the source of our existence is called worship.  Worship is a gesture of love, a gesture of thanksgiving and appreciation for the one who is the creator of our soul.  Adoration, or worship requires the interior choice to unveil oneself before one's Creator with gratefulness.  It is an interior unveiling, becoming transparent before the Creator, and offering back to Him - with love and freedom - the only gift that is fitting: our lives, our soul.  The interior gesture of adoration is the act whereby we place our lives lovingly and trustingly into the hands of God.  We find this gesture difficult because we don't trust God with our happiness.  But if the Creator created us, it was not because there was something lacking in His own happiness - He created us for our happiness, and He knows perfectly in what our happiness consists.  He also knows and intended for us to freely choose the good that finalizes us and makes us happy.  God does not apply pressure, He attracts, and if we allow ourselves to be attracted, we perform a gesture of adoration, a gesture of presence, quality time, and therefore love.

Just like the other gestures, adoration is fundamentally a gesture of respect.  Whether we feel love for God or not, whether we are attracted to God or not, we respect the fact that there is one who is first in being, and it is not ourselves or our ego.  Without adoration of God, something else inevitably comes first in our lives, and if it isn't our precious ego, it is another creature until we can longer stand their weaknesses or defects.  Adoration requires us to see ourselves for what we are, to become vulnerable before the one who alone is master of being and life.  While with a little coaxing we can easily admit that we are not masters over our being, it is much more difficult to practically admit that we are not the masters of our own lives.  But what joy and freedom for the one who tears down the walls in his heart, receiving his life from and turning his soul back to his Creator.

Love Languages: Gift Giving and the Gift of Self

This final gesture of love is last in the genetic order in a certain way.  Giving gifts to one another is the least important gesture when it comes to building community - not that it isn't important, but compared to the practical gestures of service and quality time gift giving is secondary.  Our experience of gift giving is usually connected with celebration, and celebration is important punctually but loses its meaning if it becomes the norm.  Christmas is once a year, birthdays are once a year, anniversaries are by definition once a year (from the Latin word annus meaning year.)  Dates have a connection with the natural world.  The earth returns to the same position with respect to the sun, and we celebrate the person or persons, who, on a day just like today, on this same day many years ago, we were born, or got marries etc.  This is cause for celebration of course, we celebrate the persons who have changed our lives, who have become part of our story, we honor them and thank them with gifts.  Gift giving is truly a gesture of love, and that is why in another sense it is not secondary.  Gift giving is a gesture that manifests the heart of all the other gestures of love.

Gifts can be useful, gifts can bring pleasure, but the heart of gift giving is love and the gift of self.  Material gifts given are a symbol of the gift of self, and this is at the core of all our other gestures of love.  The gift of self requires total freedom, and a choice to love another person.  I will quickly go through the languages of love we already looked at to examine how each of them requires a true gift of self in order to be authentic.

We first looked at the language of physical touch, physical gestures of love.  Physical affection requires a certain amount of warmth, and at the same time must avoid the trap of emotional fusion.  An embrace has a double effect, both on the one embracing and on the one embraced.  Without an embrace becoming cold - without it losing its authenticity which relies on a true gift of self - it must also avoid getting lost in the emotion and selfish pleasure of the gesture.  To avoid this, it helps to remember that an embrace is not primarily for oursleves, but for the other person...  otherwise the gesture loses its quality as a gift of self, and becomes possessive.

With affirmation, or saying what is good, the gesture's authenticity relies on the truth of the affirmation.  If saying the good is seen as a gift, it is in bearing witness to the truth that the good finds its value.  Saying the truth is a gift when it elevates the other person, and so it therefore requires having not only a true judgment, but also the discernment of what makes that truth attractive.  So, in fact, affirmation implies a gift of self because we reveal ourselves as being drawn to the other person because of something truly attractive about them.  Allowing oneself to be attracted to another person as person - a process that is necessary to affirm them truthfully - involved thereby the gift of self.

The smile is another gesture that depends upon the gift of self.  For a smile to be authentic, and therefore a true gesture, it implies or requires a discovery of the true attractiveness of another person.  When we are happy, it is easier to smile, when we are sad or angry, it is harder.  There is a choice however, sometimes through tears or gritted teeth, to show the other person that they are good and dear to us.  The eyes are the window of the soul, and they communicate - despite the mask we may try to wear - our openness or "closedness" to the other person.  A smile begins with the eyes not with the lips.  A smile begins with the way we see reality or the person before us.  And once again, a smile is the gesture that accompanies the attraction we experience to another person.  It is the manifestation of the gift of self that occurs when we respond to the goodness we discover in another person.  The smile begins with a gaze, and the gaze begins with a choice to look at a person as person, and to allow oneself to discover what is hidden yet attractive.

The gestures involving taste - acquiring the tastes of others - could be more easily said by speaking of adaptation and flexibility.  How can we understand the gestures which accommodate other's preferences as implying the gift of self?  We could say that to a certain extent, adjusting one's sensitivity has more to do with the way or manner in which one gives oneself than with the actual gift of self.  On the other hand, adjusting or adapting oneself to another person is essentially leaving oneself behind to make room for the other person in one's manner of being.  In this way, it is a gift of self to the extent that we allow the other person to modify us.  This requires trust of course, and all the respect due to persons.

Being present at home is also a gesture that implies the gift of self.  Presence goes hand in hand with availability.  Being in the house but unavailable is no the same thing as being present.  Being available at home is therefore truly a gift of self.  Without this gesture of presence the rest of home-life will become strained.  But this gesture of presence extends beyond the home.  Wherever you are, your presence has the possibility of being a gift to the people around you.  At a very basic level, as I wrote earlier when looking at the connection between presence and the sense of smell, we can see that this involves hygiene, and at a much higher level we could call this charisma.  This is certainly due in part to personal qualities and at the same  time it is a gesture.  The gesture of presence is the crowning gesture of all the other sensible gestures.  Presence takes on its quality as a gesture of love to the extent that the other sensible gestures (Physical Touch, Affirmation, Smile, Adaptation/Flexibility) are developed and exercised.

For service to be an authentic gesture of love, it requires the gift of self as well.  Being efficient and getting a  job done is important, but it is secondary when it comes to love.  When we perform a service our intention must arise from the free gift of ourselves for the gesture to communicate love.  If we remain at the level of justice, and demand others to work just because everyone has to carry their fair share of the household chores - the community may operate efficiently, but the personal element is crushed.  Of course, when justice is ignored completely, community life becomes inhuman.  A service that is also a gesture of love is the free gift of self - the gift of one's time or talent - whereby one becomes useful for others, or for another person.  For service to be a gesture of love, it cannot simply be a useful function, it must be performed freely and concretely for others or for one particular person.  Once again we see that the gift of self is at the heart of love gestures.

Quality time clearly implies the gift of self.  Gift both in the passive sense and in the active sense.  Perhaps it is important to examine this point a little closer.  We could reduce the notion of the gift of self to an activity, to being an extrovert for example - but the gift of self also implies making one's person accessible, being open, and attentive.  A gift allows itself to be unwrapped. Someone who is a little extroverted in the gift of themselves is like a child who wants to help everyone unwrap the gift he gives them.  People are like onions, they have layers.  As we spend quality time with people, they progressive make their way through the layers to our core.  This process takes time and advances at a unique and personal rhythm.  At times the gift of ourselves is passive, at times active, and the gestures of quality time really highlight this balance.  Quality time does not have a goal if not the gift of self - our person is given by an unveiling of what we think and what we feel about our lives, our search for meaning, and it is also given by our listening, by our welcoming of the other person.

This concludes the more philosophical/experiential analysis of gestures and the languages of love.  With my next post, I will begin trying to elevate the analysis.  Thought can become abstract, but love cannot become abstract or it will die.  Authentic gestures are essential for the exercise and growth of love.  That is why with the passing of a loved one, love understands that unless it finds some concrete way of being in communion - a gesture - it too will die.  Our lives are connected, so when a loved one dies it is like an amputation.  Our heart cannot rest because its resting place has disappeared.  Our heart continues to be drawn to them even though their existence escapes us.  Do they still exist?  If they have ceased to exist, why do they continue to influence our love?  Why does our heart continue to seek them?  If they have truly ceased to exist, love is vain, and if love is vain, life itself is in vain.  But our heart indicates the path to the source of love, the source of goodness.  If we can no longer exercise our love for a friend who has disappeared, we can use the movement of love we still have for them to discover the source of their goodness.  When we discover this source, our heart again finds rest and meaning.  This source is what religious traditions call God.  Does God use gestures to express love?  If so, what are they?  Are there gestures that we can perform to express our love for God?  Are there special revealed gestures of love?

Love Languages: Quality Time and Conversation

The second specifically constructive gesture or language of love is Quality Time.  The majority of people cannot just live next each other without quality personal contact.  There are hermits of course, but as Aristotle reminds us in his book on the City (The Politics, book I, part II), a man who lives apart from the community is either a god or a beast.  The consequences of being away from the community are either divinizing or de-humanizing - we either become contemplatives or monsters.  It is important to note Aristotle's other surprise at his discovery of man's contemplative vocation, and that is about how few of us actually live the lives we were made to live (Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Ch. 5).  Aristotle discovered that the greatest happiness man can attain - the activity which he alone of all the animals is able to perform - is the contemplation of his Creator.  And of course, he remarks just how rarely people discover their capacity for contemplation, and how rarely even those who discover their capacity actually contemplate (Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, Ch. 8, Metaphysics Book XII, Part 7).  With those remarks, it becomes fairly easy to discern - almost conclusively - that when someone separates themselves from the community, even for apparently valid reasons, they place their lives and their happiness in danger.  Even hermits live in community - though their community activities are reduced to a strict minimum.

Man's happiness is not only found in contemplation however, it is also in the exercise of friendship and in a  bond of friendship-love.  This is a second important point for community life.  Living "separated" from the community is possible even when one lives in physical proximity of other persons.  Pope John Paul II wrote about this phenomenon in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae referring specifically to the modern conception of individual freedom:

"This view of freedom leads to a serious distortion of life in society. If the promotion of the self is understood in terms of absolute autonomy, people inevitably reach the point of rejecting one another. Everyone else is considered an enemy from whom one has to defend oneself. Thus soci- ety becomes a mass of individuals placed side by side, but without any mutual bonds. Each one wishes to assert himself independently of the other and in fact intends to make his own interests prevail." (EV, §20)

We commonly refer to this phenomenon as individualism.  A human community is not just the juxtaposition of individuals - people living in physical or even emotional proximity - with no deeply spiritual bonds.  A human community is founded on personal friendships - personal bonds which are more than just circumstantial.  In order for these personal friendships to come about, to thrive, and to become a solid foundation, there must be a concrete exchange of persons.  This is where the love language of quality time comes in to play.  Quality time is sharing something personally, it is what permits a personal exchange.  Quality time is a moment where what is truly personal is made manifest, where what was hidden about the other person is shared.  While the gestures of quality time are diverse, I think the essential gesture of quality time is conversation.

Artistic expression must have some role as a gesture of quality time, but it is more connected with the gesture of gift giving in my opinion.  Art does not have a principally ethical intention at its origin - so the effects of art or of artistic inspiration on the communication of personal love are secondary.  Beauty does not increase love as such, but does awaken the mind and heart to a certain extent.  Quality time could involve singing a love song to someone you love.  What is essential is the veracity of the words.  If the music itself isn't beautiful, but the words are honest, personal, and true, the intention is still transmitted.  On the other hand, if the music is beautiful but the words are banal, impersonal, or quite simply lies, it could be artistically appreciated but lacking ethical intention, or worse, amoral.

What we do see then, are degrees of personal significance in the time we can spend with each other.  And the degree of personal significance is the quality of the time we spend with each other. In order to understand what it is that makes some moments or activities more meaningful than others, we should try to understand or discover what we could call the "principle of meaning."  What is it that determines whether or not the time we spend with someone will be meaningful?  Can we always make the time we spend with someone meaningful, or do we have to accept that sometimes it will be superficial?  Does the meaning of a moment spent with someone depend on both persons?  Is it possible for one person to find time spent with someone meaningful while the other person does not?

I think that true quality time takes two, it cannot be a completely one-sided affair.  A personal exchange requires both exposing one's true self and receiving the other's true self.  This implies trust and allowing oneself to be vulnerable.  Quality time is not dramatic, but rather the experience of another as a person and not just an individual.

One may be led to believe that quality time is always something deep, intimate, and perhaps secret, but quality time can also be simple, light and joyful.  There is no reason to oppose superficial and profound.  The problem comes in when we limit our relationships with others to either the superficial or the profound.  The problem comes in when we refuse to be vulnerable or when we oblige someone to become vulnerable.  The word "superficial" has negative connotations when used to describe relationships, which may sometimes be the case.  However, I do not think it is right to accuse others of being superficial.  We can accuse ourselves of being superficial, but not other people.  If someone does not choose to reveal themselves to us, perhaps it is because we have not yet sufficiently earned their trust, perhaps it is because they are more receptive than revealing in their personality.  Perhaps it is just because they lack experience or reflection, so they are innocent or childlike, but not superficial.  So if we look at quality time, there are both a variety of forms and degrees.  Quality time is sharing human experience in a personal way.  Sharing human experience could be either sharing the experience itself - having the same experience at the same time - or sharing experience by communicating/transmitting it.  Culture has this very end in view.

Once again, we are looking at gestures of quality time -and quality time is one of the two constructive gestures of love.  By gestures of service we demonstrate that we depend upon one another materially, that we need each other in very concrete and basic ways, and that we serve one another - we do things for one another - not just because we have to, but because others need our help or our services, and we want to do what we can to help.  In a small community or family, the services are undertaken for the good (well-being) of those who live together, it incarnates in a fundamental, material way our choice to live together.  They are not undertaken for money, and this brings up an interesting reflection on the education of children.  In today's materialistic, individualistic society, how do we educate children to have a balanced perspective on the material common good?  Some have suggested giving children an allowance based on their participation in household chores.  Though the motivation involved is extremely effective in getting children to do stuff, it also reinforces the modern materialistic, individualistic mentality - which is undesirable.  Building a strong and balanced family or community life requires true cooperation and profound personal bonds.  True cooperation requires having the same end in view.  And the end of family life is the good of all the members of the household.  So if household chores become paid jobs, the goal is no longer to live with each other, and it does not create an atmosphere of trust and mutual dependence.  Money becomes the perceived fruit of our labors, and we depend less upon each other than upon the power of money.  We rely less upon others for our happiness, and more upon money.

Perhaps that is why materialism and individualism go hand in hand, and we are seduced by individualism because it resembles autonomy - which is a personal good.  But while persons are stable, strong, and reliable to the extent that they discover and develop according to their substantial autonomy, they are good to the extent that they are able to enter into profound personal communion with others.  In fact, the human person is revealed through communion with other persons, not through the manifestation of autonomy.  So the confusion between substantial autonomy and an individualistic materialism has encouraged the separation of persons at the heart of the family and community.  Substantial autonomy gives us our depth as human persons, and this depth is revealed in the communion we have with other persons.  An individual material autonomy is important, but is not the essence of autonomy.  And someone who is materially independent does not necessarily know the source of their true autonomy - or worse they equate their autonomy with their independence.  A family or community is not build of independent members, but of autonomous persons who have chosen to depend upon one another, who have chosen to be responsible for one another.

Now, the quality time spent with members of the community or family strengthen the personal bonds which are what enable us, principally, to choose one another.  What are some specific ways we exercise quality time?  Quality time is what disposes to communion, and what realizes deep personal communion.  Conversation seems to me to be the most obvious and fundamental means of communion and ipso facto exercise of quality time.  I am sure there are other ways to spend quality time with others, but to skip conversation would be an error.  We don't speak merely to affirm one another, merely to say the good - we also speak to teach, to share our experiences, to try to understand our lives, and to expose our inner-self.  So conversation takes place at many levels, and can realize various degrees of communion.  In this way, we can look at making conversation as a gesture of love, a gesture of quality time.  There are different kinds of conversation (social, polite, planning, deep, superficial, awkward, interesting, boring, etc.) and there are different subjects.  Do the different levels of conversation correspond to the different levels of ethical acts?

Are we ever under an obligation to enter into dialog with someone?  Is there a fundamentally ethical motivation for conversation?  Can the language of quality time be spoken at the most basic ethical level? Does respect require us to spend quality time with people we don't even know?  Basic respect, as we have already seen, requires us to avoid harming others.  Therefore basic respect in the domain of quality time requires conversation to the extent that it would prevent pain or harm.  When someone initiates conversation with us, it is against basic respect to ignore them in most circumstances.  And in most circumstances, basic respect would require us to avoid imposing conversation on others.  Beyond the level of basic respect is that of politeness, and therefore polite conversation.  Polite conversation is a non-imposing invitation to conversation.  Polite conversation gives the other person permission to speak without forcing them to or obliging them to.  When we know that a human community is built on personal relationships, which requires the exchange of persons, politeness obliges engaging others - even strangers - in conversation.  Beyond polite conversation is socializing - conversation open to friendship.  In order for socializing to remain ethical however, it must remain finalized by friendship.  Friendly conversation that does not really change us, or bring us closer, remains superficial.  In friendly conversation, or socializing, a discovery of the other person allows trust to grow.  With growing trust comes the ability to expose one's person in a deeper way.  Therefore social conversation can be a disposition to deeper more personal conversation, which is one of the most important gestures of quality time.

My mother sent me an article about the relationship between people's happiness and the kinds of conversation they have.  Without getting into what it means to be happy, the article does offer an interesting perspective into the effects of conversation habits on our lives.  My cousin - I think she must be in middle school - likes to start conversations with me online.  She lacks a little follow-through though.  She say, "Hi," and I reply by returning the greeting and asking a question.  But since the first question isn't very interesting I usually only get a one word answer.  So then I ask a more interesting question - to which I get a brief reply.  Obviously, socializing requires certain skills that need time and a sense of responsibility to acquire.  These gestures of quality time and conversation contribute to the ambiance and culture of a family or community - quality time is what allows us to demonstrate concretely to one another that we are welcomed and received for who we are, as persons.

Love Languages: Service and Being Useful

Having now finished looking at the five fundamental gestures of love, I will now try to examine the gestures that are essential for building a common life.  While all the gestures we have looked at up to now are important in the immediate, and can be employed independently of an engagement in the common life, these last three gestures are specifically constructive to common life.  The last three gestures arise from a sense of responsibility.  Relationships are ethical to the extent that they are founded on mutual respect - and they are personal to the extent that there is mutual responsibility.  If you break it down, the word responsible refers to one's ability to respond.  One's ability to respond depends upon a number of factors: maturity, courage, strength, conscience, freedom, willingness, etc.

Responsibility should be clearly distinguished from duty.  Duty is something imposed from without, from society, culture, or religion.  You could also use the word duty to refer to obligations.  Obviously, the Philosopher Immanuel Kant has a lot to say about that, along with the other "Deontologists," but I'd rather not get into that.  I would rather emphasize the fact that becoming responsible is not simply the process of becoming aware of obligations or developing a sense of duty.  I would even argue that someone whose sense of responsibility depends upon the accomplishment of obligations is not in fact responsible.  Responsibility is not a virtue, it is the quality of a person who has discovered both a spiritual good and elements of the common good.  Responsibility is not focused on the fulfillment of obligations, responsibility seeks the protection and growth of a personal good and of the common good it depends upon.  An obligation is the formalization of a responsibility - so a responsibility that is no longer connected to an affective knowledge, a knowledge of the good that responsibility is meant to protect and serve.  When  ethics is reduced to its rational element (rational as distinct from intellective), responsibility is reduced to a laundry list of obligations.  Acting ethically means acting intelligently - not just rationally.  Acting ethically requires a true knowledge of an end-good, a good that is able to finalize.  Once this good is discovered for what it is, and for what it requires, I take responsibility for it for the sake of my happiness.  Responsibility has to do with what is necessary for my happiness, and by extension, what is necessary for the happiness of those I love.  Obligation has to do with what I think is important, or what others think is important, but has no clear tie to happiness.  Most people in today's world are seeking happiness and only manage to fulfill obligations with great difficulty or in limited quantities.  We have a greatly diminished sense of duty - for better or for worse.

It would be interesting to examine the modern difficulty with fidelity in this perspective.  Is fidelity a duty or a responsibility?  Well, that depends more on us and on our way of seeing reality than on fidelity itself.  Fidelity can be lived as a responsibility or as an obligation.  Faithfulness is the responsibility of someone who knows that the person he has chosen to love is capable of giving meaning to his entire life, and who knows that the other person depends upon him for meaning as well.  Faithfulness is an obligation for someone who does takes their engagement seriously, but doesn't see infidelity as an obstacle to their happiness, or the happiness of the other person.

We could also contrast responsibility with obedience.  Someone who does what they are told is necessarily responsible.  Someone who does what they are told and discovers their finality thereby becomes more responsible.  So ethical education consists in helping others discover their responsibilities.  Strictly speaking, you do not give someone a responsibility, you trust them to become responsible or to discover and own up to their responsibilities.  If we educate someone at the level of obligation and duty - telling them there are things they simply have to do - when they are old enough to decide that their priority in life is happiness and not the fulfillment of duties or obligations, they will abandon many of the practices we dutifully obliged them to do.

Education leans on obedience to help another person discover their responsibilities.  But obedience is only a true means of education for children, and all those who have not attained maturity.  Adulthood is reached when a person is capable of acting in function of a personal good.  So using obedience on someone who is an adult is inappropriate.  Telling an adult how to discover their finality is treating them as though they were not an adult.  And yet, we all need a reminder from time to time about the meaning of our lives, and that there is a direction in which we are headed whether we are aware of it or not.  That is why an adult continues their self-education by taking into consideration the councils and perspectives of the wise, but ceases to function under the mode of obedience.  God is the only being that could legitimately propose a path of obedience to an adult - and it is precisely because of God's position with respect to human finality.  If God exists, he knows us perfectly, and he knows perfectly what we were created for, he knows what our greatest personal happiness is and how we can obtain it.  So we can trust God beyond our own point of view, and the point of view of others, however we can only know God's will in faith.  Anyone who claims to know the particular will of God beyond the shadow of a doubt is surely illuminated or under an illusion.

All of these thoughts should help us understand the spirit in which we serve one another.  Service is part of acting responsibly.  Service is a gesture that demonstrates one's engagement in the common good with concern for protecting personal relationships.  Service is  a gesture of cooperation in the common project of living together.  Without gestures of service, it starts to look like someone has no real intention of living with the other people in the household or community.  Someone who shows up for meals, but doesn't offer to help in the kitchen in any way, shape, or form is either a guest, a child, a special needs case, or a thief.  Unless special arrangements exist, or an exception is made, the shared material goods of a household are maintained by those who use them, and are used for the good of all in the household.  An adult member of the household who uses the common good without contributing to its upkeep, or renewing it, or replacing it acts like a thief.

One difficulty arises when someone considers the production of money as a sufficient way to serve the common good.  Money is not good in itself, it is a certain power to obtain material goods, it is a means to acquire material goods.  Someone who views their contribution to the common good as consisting exclusively in the production of money only contributes virtually.  A virtual contribution to the common good does not build family or community.  A truly constructive engagement in common life requires gestures of service that maintain the material common good.

Beyond the material common good, a community (or household) also needs to be build on the common concern for the personal good of its members.  This concern is a special kind of service, the service of a friend who shows his concern for his friend.  A friend wants his friend to be happy, and knows that his friend's happiness depends upon more than just being friendly.  This Personal Attention is a special service that can be rendered in the form of initiatives in the realm of service or in the form of councils given when they are asked for.  A friend is the one most capable of rendering this service, and it is through our experience of the demands of friendship that we learn to serve other people in a personal way.  It is the friendship of a couple that enables them to educate their children to become human persons.  Service becomes something we do for someone not simply because we love them, but because we want them to be happy.  Not just because we want them to become better persons, but because we are practically engaged in living together.

Service becomes difficult when what one person thinks important is different from the other person(s) in the household.  When it comes to cleaning, or maintenance, or cooking, there is always an aspect that can become a point of contention.  Some people like things cleaner than others, some people take better care of things than others, and people have different standards and abilities when it comes to cooking.  It is therefore important to come to an agreement about what tasks or services each member of a household or community will be responsible for and how often etc.  Obviously this requires a dialog and some flexibility.

We could reflect on what a fundamental service might be - one we provide for others out of basic respect.  Ethically, does basic respect for other people require us to serve them at all?  Basic respect has more to do with not causing hurt or pain than with actually doing good.  Basic respect in the domain of service has to do with avoiding causing others inconveniences.  Basic respect in the domain of service has to do with behaving oneself in such a way as to not create work for other people.  For some reason, it seems like most deficiencies even among adults are found in this area.  An example: basic respect in terms of service would require me to put my shopping cart somewhere out of the way of other people's cars, i.e. not behind my neighbor's car in such a way that they can't back-out without moving the cart first.  So, if this happens, it could be done by someone who is not yet adult and therefore not able to think of others.  If it is done by someone who is adult, it would be because of negligence, inattention, or even spite!  Basic respect requires not only that we avoid creating inconveniences for others in circumstances where they will know it was us, but that we avoid creating perceptibly anonymous inconveniences as well.

Beyond the basic level of respect, we find gestures of service that are open to friendship, also known as politeness.  Politeness comes from the Greek work polis, which refers to the city.  Obviously the city is build on constructive actions of individuals that contribute to the material well-being of other citizens and to the concord between citizens.  The Boy-Scouts have a saying that is directed to these gestures of service that are open to friendship - "do a good turn daily" and "Leave the place better than you found it."

We already looked at the service proper to friendship - doing what we can to help our friend achieve their happiness and finality.  This can be in the form of giving counsel when asked, or taking on additional material responsibilities to give them more time for an important activity.

Love Languages: Personal Preference and the Sense of Taste

The last sense to look at in terms of ways to communicate love, is the sense of taste.  The sense of taste is physically localized in the organ of the tongue.  Not only is the tongue the organ of taste, it is also one of the most sensitive organs of the body in terms of touch.  The detail that you can detect with your tongue is much greater than the detail you can feel with the tips of your fingers.  Just try feeling the back of your teeth with your tongue, then the back of your teeth with your fingers.  When you feel your teeth with your tongue,they feel magnified as compared to when you feel them with your fingers.  The surface of your teeth appear much more clearly in your imagination when you feel them with your tongue.

The properties of the tongue that make it so much more sensitive are its malleability - its softness - and moisture.  The composition of the tongue is not primarily intended to be an organ of touch however - it is primarily intended to be an organ of taste.  While the objectivity of the tongue as a tactile organ surpasses that of the fingers, its subjectivity in the realm of taste is surprising.

In order to taste something, you must already begin to assimilate it. In order to taste something, it must become moist, which means it must already undergo a physical change.  Odors are in air, flavors are in moisture.  Water has a greater destructuring effect on a non-aqueous physical reality than air.  When we put something in our mouth it is almost exclusively in order to destroy it and assimilate it.  Tasting is the last experience we have of something before we assimilate it.  We can still spit that something out if we decide it isn't good, or if we do not intend to assimilate it (something wine-tasters are known to do.)

When it comes to flavors, taste helps us recognize the harmonious composition of food as it compares to our own composition.  What we eat has an effect on what we become in terms of our physical nature and body.  Flavors that are sweet, spicy, salty, bitter, sour, etc. are from physical realities that have an effect on our digestion, our assimilation and on our own physical composition, harmony, and temperament.  Our preferences in taste reflect something of our preferred way of being, of our preferred way of acting and reacting.  This is perhaps one reason why our tastes are varied - behaviors and temperaments are different depending on the individual and natural composition of their bodies.  The way someone behaves depends upon both their nature and psychology, and on their personal choices.  We are not completely predetermined by our nature, by our body, but we are substantially conditioned by it.  Our personal choices, which result in our concrete actions and behaviors, depend partially upon what we are made of materially speaking and partially upon the purpose  we have discovered for our lives - our finality.  Our taste changes with time, and I think that has something - at least vaguely - to do with  changes in what we feel is important in life.  Often we even compare the events of our lives with flavors: "sweet victory," "bitter defeat," "then things went sour," "his reflections really spiced up the conversations."

So, if we look at gestures that imply taste, gestures that affect other peoples sense of taste, it is pretty obvious that this is the most analogical of gestures.  Taste with respect to food and drink is the immediate meaning of the sensation - but musical taste exists too, and so does taste in clothes, art, books, humor, etc; taste, analogically refers to one's personal preferences and interests.  So, as in the other gestures of love, let us try to distinguish between "tasteful gestures" at the different ethical levels.

At a basic level of respect, there is the recognition that everyone has different tastes, and that while imposing my own tastes on someone else is disrespectful, acknowledging that the tastes or interests of another person can legitimately differ from my own is basic respect.  The level of basic respect should enable us to avoid foolish and useless quarrels - but experience shows that living close to others requires more than just acknowledging legitimate differences in the domain of personal preferences and interests.  Certain preferences or interests might seem ridiculous or foolish to our own judgment - but if we do not learn to tolerate or resolve these differences, conflict is inevitable.

Since it is impossible to completely conceal our own preferences or interests from those who live close to us, we must adopt new gestures of taste that are open to friendship.  When we desire to begin a friendship with someone, we can start by sharing our preferences and interests, and we can try to discover their own preferences and interests.  This basic gesture of openness to friendship has to do with generalities - informing and being informed on basic likes and dislikes.  We usually don't start sharing our most unique and perhaps outrageous preferences or interests - but that will depend upon the personality of the other person.

Beyond discovering and revealing preferences and interests, there is the gesture of love which implies taking account of those preferences or interests in what we say or do to or for the person whom we love.  And beyond this simple gesture of love, the gesture of intimacy has to do with acquiring the tastes of the other person.  It is one thing to participate in an activity with someone because it interests them, and you want to support them (that is a gesture of presence) and another to learn to enjoy the activity itself.  It is one thing to sit next to someone while they watch their favorite sports program, and another thing to learn to enjoy that sports program with them.  While it is normal and healthy for a couple to have separate activities, it weighs down a close relationship when the persons involved do not occasionally choose to modify their personal preferences or interests in function of the other person.  Sometimes that acquired taste can be for something neither person has ever appreciated before.  It can be easier to acquire a taste for art, for example, when the friendship is strong.  And the developed appreciation for something beautiful or qualitative can be something special that fortifies a friendship.  This certainly touches the language of quality time, but quality time is a mix between presence and personal preferences.

Love Languages: Presence and the Sense of Smell

To begin a reflection on the gestures that engage specifically the sense of smell to communicate love, it seems clear to me that we must take a fresh look at our experience.  Love is attraction, and we are attracted to what is good.  What is our experience of goodness when it comes to smells?

Before I try to tackle the question, I think a brief divergence is important.  Attraction must be clearly distinguished from seduction.  Attraction is a natural movement towards a good.  Seduction is already a different kind of movement.  When I am attracted, I remain free to respond to the attraction or turn away.  When I am seduced, on the other hand, my judgment is focused on appearances.  Seduction involves the formal cause, whereas the source of attraction is the final cause.  We are attracted to what is goo, we are seduced by what is beautiful, by what is perfect.  The qualities of a person are kinds of perfections - these qualities may seduce us, but they cannot attract us as such.  Attraction requires a personal knowledge of someone, and so an experience not only of their qualities and defects, but a knowledge of their person.

Beauty, talents, and temperament are all superficial aspects of a human person.  you can describe a human person, but that description is not a personal knowledge, nor does it necessarily come from a personal knowledge.  Personal knowledge implies attraction.  The other's person is what causes an attraction.  Beyond all the qualities that could cause me to like them, there is the source of these qualities - the person himself.  Whereas all the qualities of a human person can seduce me, it is the other person as such who is a source of attraction.  Certainly we can talk about "attractive qualities" - insofar as they lead to a knowledge of the person.  When we stop at the qualities themselves however, the knowledge we have to the other person is amputated from its source and loses its personal quality.  When you say that you know someone  personally, it implies that you have penetrated beneath  the surface - that you have access to waht is hidden - to what cannot be described or explained abstractly.  In France, people like to write books about other people, about what they think, and about why they think what they think, without even having met the people they have written about.  Though some people may find books like that interesting, the conclusions of these authors are simply rationalized opinions dressed up to look like personal knowledge.  You don't know someone personally if you don't love them, you don't love someone truly until you are attracted to them for who they are.

Philosophically, I think we are obliged to say that so long as we do not love someone, we do not know them personally.  If we do not like someone, it is never for personal reasons, it is always for impersonal reasons.  We know that we have discovered, or at least have begun to discover a human person as a person when we are attracted to them.  Personal knowledge is the knowledge of a good, a spiritual good, which must be discovered "in person," because it is a knowledge of the whole reality.

The gestures we use to communicate love often resemble gesture s of seduction - even though teh intention is completely different.  Smells, or odors can be used with the intention to seduce, they can also be used to render one's presence pleasant.  The quantity, quality, and areas of application of perfume is a gesture of smell.  The intention of the gesture could be seduction or attracting attention to oneself, it could also be to subtly render one's presence pleasant.  A gesture has an objective element though, because it acts directly on the senses.  The area of application, kind, and amount of perfume a woman puts on can be unintentionally seductive.  Just like certain embraces, smiles, and compliments or words can be unintentionally seductive.  Modesty is the virtue that governs our gestures so that they correspond to an ethical intention.  Modesty takes into account the objective effect of our gestures on the people around us, and renders those gestures as unequivocal as possible.

Lets look again at our experience of gestures that communicate through odor.  And to do that, lets just simply start by looking at our experience of smell.  We have the experience of good smells, bad smells, the smell of fresh air, the smell of stale air.  Something can smell pretty, something can smell rotten.  Smells help us recognize the presence of a reality.  We can know when someone was in a room by the scent they leave behind.  We can know when someone has arrived by their smell as well.  Smells can mask other smells, and smells can enhance certain experiences.  So if we are to look at the different ethical levels of odor, what could we say?

Is a clean smell basic respect?  This certainly varies between cultures (I can testify to this first-hand, as I live in a community composed of brothers from around the world.)  Those who use products to mask or perfume their bodies the most are the African brothers, and those who pay the least attention in general are the European brothers.  We can all agree, however, that without posing a judgment on personal hygine habits, the most basic level of respect is having a fairly neutral odor associated with one's presence.  One step beyond that, which would be a gesture of openness to friendship, is that of smelling fresh or clean.  Something that smells fresh or clean does not yet imply perfumes or strong smelling shampoo, etc.  Strong odors, even when they are nice, tend to draw more attention than appropriate.

Flowers and potpourri (which in French literally - ironically - means "rot-pot") can be used to create an ambiance that is favorable to the exercise of friendship.  These, along with perfumes, enter the third category of gestures of love that have to do with the sense of smell.  They make a place even more inviting, they add a little something extra to the presence of the person who wears them.  We could talk about cooking here too, the smells of a kitchen can be quite important for the exercise of friendship.  If you are a good cook, the simple act of preparing a meal for a friend is a wonderful gesture of love that is communicated by the sense of smell.  It isn't just the act of service that communicates love, it is the smell of food well prepared also.