I NEED A HUG

Did you ever find yourself saying to yourself, or better, to another, "I just need a hug"? If we're human, we all have. To be human, to be alive, is to need to be held, to be touched, to know that we are loved and cared about. As children we needed the warm and loving embrace of our parents, an embrace that gave us a sense of security— and love. It does not change as we grow older. And the need does not grow any less. We are physical beings and being physical is part of who we are. Some may need less hugs and less of a hug than others, but the need is the same in us all.

The same is true of the opposite: the need to hug someone else. Yes, the mutual embrace means we are hugged in return. But a hug is a natural, human response to showing that we care for and care about the other person. At that moment it is not enough simply to use words: they fall far too short of what we want to and can convey by a hug. We are both defined and limited by our bodies. Our spiritual being is given visible reality by our body. We communicate body to body before we can begin to communicate soul to soul. And we get in contact with another person's soul through the body: through hugs, kisses, handshakes, pats on the back, embraces.

That can be dangerous, of course. A hug says more than words can say. Words try to convey the spiritual part of our relationship. Hugs convey the deeper part: the physical and spiritual. And so if we don't want to get too close to another, if we want to stay at arm’s length, we keep our arms away from the other: no hugs, please.

The other danger is that we can abuse the physical part of any relationship. Physical abuse, in every way, shape and form is the degradation of another person. For what we are doing is using the other, abusing the other, for our own pleasure. That's called "sin," which is quite the opposite of love, which is what the physical embrace is supposed to convey. Thus, when we practice our faith, one of the first and essential practices is be called "honoring the body" – both our own and that of the other, of others.

Now I will grant that there is probably too much emphasis on the body today.  Stand in line at the grocery store and read the covers of the magazines, glossy as well as pulp. There is always at least one article on how to lose weight without really trying, one on how to be a better lover, and one on how to look better. It is almost as if we believe that if we get the physical right, the spiritual will follow: if we get in shape, look good and know how to be seductive, we will be loved.

Wrong. It is just the opposite. We begin by already knowing we are loved and lovable, no matter what we look like or how out of shape we are. The physical is an outward expression of the spiritual. We may be out of shape physically because we our out of shape spiritually. But to honor our own bodies and to honor the bodies and, thus the being of others, we must not separate the spiritual from the physical on the one hand, and we must not overlook or overemphasize the importance of the need to express physically what we feel spiritually. We all need hugs and we all need to give them. But we must also be aware of why and what we are saying in the process.