I feel like it’s easy to identify the four loves that C. S. Lewis talks about; Agape (Sacred), Storge (Instinctual Affection), Eros (Passionate) and Filial (Familial).
I recently learned that Sanskrit has upwards of 96 words for love. Another author noted upwards of 200 words for love. Persian has 80. The Greeks have 4 and we in America have 1. Dr. Robert Johnson, author and Jungian analyst notes this absurdity. “We have hundreds of names for nuts and bolts, but only one name for love.”
I don’t know if we truly understand the depth of love when we’re saying it to someone. Maybe we need to take another look at some of the different Sanskrit words for love and bring them into our vocabulary. No doubt there are some beautiful terms waiting to be resurrected or incorporated into our lexicon and every day usage.
I’m proud that I can tell my friends I love them and guys have arrived at that pretty freely without being labeled as “gay” for saying it. My father’s generation had a tough time saying it and he never heard his father say it at all. My mom told me my dad told his father he “loved him” when my dad was in his 50s and grandpa was visiting our family from Texas. My grandfather looked at him like he was punched in the gut. He was shocked. Happily, he had enough sense to say “I love you back.” My dad made a big deal of it and told my mom he thought that may have been the first time he ever heard his father say “I love you.”
David Brooks, NY Times columnist said, “love wasn’t expressed” in his household and it was hard for him to learn how to say it. When his grandfather was dying, he was unable to say “I love you back to him” when the old man expressed his love to his grandson. The writer said his one regret in life is that he wasn’t able to say “I love you back to him.”
We learn from these things and evolve. Johnson notes that our inability to express our feelings undermines who we are as a people and culture. He’s right about that. Our limitation in vocabulary limits our potential. Johnson writes, “If we had the expanded and exact vocabulary for feeling that we have for science and technology, we’d be well on our way to warmth of relatedness and generosity of feeling.”
What is the word for love of nature? I learned “Biophilia” is a term for love of nature coined Eric Fromme in the 60s and further developed by Harvard naturalist Dr. Edward O. Wilson to sum up our natural inclinations for love and cravings for nature – what he called “our innate tendencies to focus on life and lifelike processes.” But this term doesn’t seem adequate when I’m talking to a tree or reveling in the miracle of a bird sitting on a branch looking me in the eye. “Boy, was that a biophilia experience.”
It’s inadequate when I’m gazing into the eyes of my favorite dogs. Luckily, it’s an unwritten rule with them and I can tell they love me back from the wag in their tails. Humans don’t have tails, though, and our inability to express our love is problematic. Robert Johnson writes, “the first difficulty we meet in discussing anything concerning our feelings is that we have no adequate vocabulary to use. Where there is no terminology, there is no consciousness. A poverty-stricken vocabulary is an immediate admission that the subject is inferior or depreciated in that society.”
I remember sitting and talking with a friend about this. The one use of the word “love” bastardizes the expression. It’s used so often to generalize a feeling that its inadequate and doesn’t elicit the true expression it intends.
This is why the actions in expressing love is so much more important than saying “I love you.” It is not what is said that matters but what one expresses nonverbally in asserting the conviction of love. It means more. But some of us are blind to the actions of others, so it needs to be said.
When someone makes our favorite meal out of the blue to express their love for you. Maybe there’s a better word that identifies the moment. Maybe instead of saying “thank you, I love you,” we say, The Sanskrit word is “prasad” which means infusing food with love. That’s it! One word. Prasad!
Maybe when we’re sitting outside with the love of our lives having a cocktail on the patio instead of saying I love you we say “I’m awestruck by you.” I wonder what kind of feeling that would elicit as you’re experiencing the awe of nature with someone you love?
Words are always inadequate to the ineffable experience of love, but I can’t help but think there’s new expressions waiting to be expressed and gobbled up whole and waiting to be internalized and nourished in a more meaningful manner.
spirit beat 