The Theology of Hugs

February 16, 2003

Now there is a topic we never covered in seminary. There was no class entitled The Theology of Hugs 101 on the entire campus of the University of Chicago! But yes, we did talk about hugs when we talked about professional ethics. Mostly the words were cautionary. “Better not to touch lest we be misunderstood,” we were told. “Respect boundaries and do not invade other people’s space.” And I agree with most of what they said. One has to careful. Usually I am. Clear boundaries keep us safe. I will always strive to respect yours, and ask you to respect mine. But I confess that to never hug anyone with whom I do ministry, well that goes entirely against my nature. At heart I really am a hugger! It comes naturally to me. A colleague of mine who is as much of an introvert as I am the opposite once called me a world class hugger and said ruefully: “Oh, there is no escape!” Yes, I realized with a sense of embarrassment, that I had overdone it with him. My instinct is to hug. I see someone again after a long absence, and the child in me wants to hold that person close. Someone is suffering, and the healer in me wants to let their heart know that they are not alone. Someone tells me great news, and I want to embrace them to let them know that I share their happiness. I hug couples after weddings and grieving relatives at funerals. Hugging is part of who I am and often part of my ministry. So you may say: “What is so special about that? Why do you need to explain it? It is natural isn’t it?”

Well, no not for everyone it isn’t. Some people are not comfortable with hugs and for others, hugs have other meanings than I may give to them. We all have different ideas about closeness and comfortable distances and boundaries. Most of the time I read it right. But sometimes I may overstep, forget, or act impulsively. Tell me if I do. Everyone has a right to set their own boundaries and a right to have them respected. We all grow up with different ideas about what is the right distance between people and how far our personal space extends. If you enter a doctor’s waiting room and there is only one other person there, a stranger, where do you sit? Probably you chose the seat in the other corner so as to give both of you space and privacy. But in some cultures that would be considered very rude. You would be saying in effect that the other was not as good as you since you did not want to sit next to him. Americans in general like to have a lot of personal space. Hugs may violate that space or they may break our isolation. No, this simple act is not simple at all.

In today’s world even hugs are often viewed with suspicion. Because we know more, because times have changed, because we went way overboard in the psychological encounter culture of the sixties, for these and other reasons but mainly because there are sexual predators in this world, hugs, even hugs are not always safe. So we have elementary school teachers afraid to touch lest they be misunderstood. And we have children and yes, adults too, craving affection and the kind of embrace that comforts you more than words ever could. It is a strange paradoxical world we live in.

As a culture we are incredibly invasive of personal privacy when it comes to so-called celebrities. Where else would a teenager ask a presidential candidate what kind of underwear he wears and worse yet, get a serious answer? Do you want to know this? I don’t! And increasingly this prying into the personal extends to ordinary people’s lives as well. This blurring of boundaries is glaringly obvious in the many talk shows where people are asked to bare their souls, share their most intimate secrets and participate in a sad substitute for real intimacy. There is a show in Holland where a real woman was observed 24 hours a day on camera. Even her bathroom was not inviolate. Several people have set up similar web sites where you can see just how uneventful their daily lives are. What are these people looking for? Is it fame, approval, a sense of being important? Or how about those folks who tune in? What is it that is so attractive about watching someone who knows they are being watched? And at the same time we fear hugs in elementary school. Go figure! Friends, we do need some guidance in this mess. That is why I thought a theology of hugs would come in handy.

So what is the theology of hugs? Well you all know, I hope, what a hug is. And theology, well literally it means the knowledge about God, but I take it to mean exploring the reasons for what we do, our deeply held beliefs, what gives meaning and purpose to our lives. So what is the meaning of a hug? Granted it may not mean much, it can be just a fleeting embrace, instinctual, automatic. It can like anything else be done as a courtesy, as a greeting. But no matter how you describe it, a hug is elemental, basic. Its healing power lies in the way it connects us, like other symbols, teddy bears for example, to our childhood. Think about the last time you held a child. A baby perhaps, all fragile, soft, and helpless. Now I do not know about you but for me holding a baby, well I get at least as much out of it as the baby, likely more. It nurtures my soul and reminds me of the better side of human nature. And it reminds me of the paradox of our lives as well. We begin lives intimately connected to our parents or caretakers, totally dependent, feeling as if the world is entirely at our command. We cry and get fed, get sung to, get hugged and feel better. But we do not yet know we are separate human beings. We grow up and become, if all goes well, independent, autonomous persons in our own right. And yet we also long for that early unconditional love. We never find that again but find other loves, see glimpses of that early paradise in the eyes of our spouses, our friends, and sometimes in our religions. Much of our lives are spent in a dance between those two poles, between wanting to be close to others and wanting to be separate. At different stages we play out this drama again. As teenagers we test our wings and the patience of those around us declaring our, as yet, fragile independence. And at the other end of our lives we come to terms with increasing dependence on others once again as illness or aging clip our wings. How we live each stage of our lives has to do with what we believe and have learned about trust and love. The theology of hugs is really the theology of love. Think of a common experience. A young child is playing happily, all is sunny and peaceful and then he falls down, skins his knees and runs hurting, crying to his mother. She hugs him, reassures him, and in that one act restores order and trust to the world. Her actions help the child believe that it will be all right, you can go back now to playing. That is the basic theology of hugs. At times when words won’t do they remind us of our human connections.

But hugs are not always safe. If boundaries are not clear they can leave you feeling intruded upon, even invaded. As with love, that overused word, you can only hug freely or love someone else if you first love yourself. And to do that you must know who you are. Part of that is setting limits. Love and hugs are not panaceas. No one has a right to demand a hug from you. Some of us have trouble saying no, others have trouble trusting others, and thus cannot say yes. Few of us can do that dance of intimacy really well. Couples, friends, co-workers send conflicting signals: come close, no, now go away! Few couples are all the time, or even most of the time in the same place when it comes to closeness. And sometimes we all have to say “No.” Sometimes we have to save ourselves. There is a thought provoking parable by Edwin Friedman, a rabbi and counselor, that points out that dilemma. A man had longed to go on a journey, a pilgrimage to a far away mountain where he knew he would find joy. So after much preparation he sets out on the journey. But about half way there he comes to a bridge. In the middle of the bridge that leads over a raging river he meets another man. When the traveler gets close he notices that this other person holds in his hands a thick rope. The other end of the rope is tied around his waist. Before the traveler can react, the man on the bridge hands him one end of the rope and jumps off the bridge. The pilgrim is left standing there straining to keep the other man from falling into the raging river. He cannot continue his journey and his arms are hurting. First he tries to reason with the man. Try to climb up the rope he suggested. Help me out here. But the other man just looked up at him. “You are responsible for me now,” he said. “You hold my life in your hands!” The stand off continues for a while. But it is getting late and the pilgrim knows that if he does not continue on his journey he may not get to the mountain before dark. So he gives the man a choice. “Climb up the rope and save yourself,” he says, “or I will let go of the rope.” “Oh, no,” the man said, “you cannot do that. You will be responsible for my death, for I will surely drown. I cannot swim.” The pilgrim stood for a moment in silence. Then he let go of the rope.

What did you think of this story? Pretty stark isn’t it? Who did you identify with? In my life I have at times been both pilgrim and the man on a rope. So, I would venture, have you. One reason some of us have a hard time with love or hugs is that shadow side, the kind of love that wants us to give up everything, even our self.

Which gives a new meaning to the Bible saying: “But what does it benefit you if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?” No, a good theology of hugs recognizes boundaries.

Maybe we need several different words for different kinds of hugs, just as we surely need more than one word for love.

The reason that love in the Bible was often translated as charity was because it was meant to be more than the feelings between two people alone, as wonderful as such a love can be. The Greek word “agape” means a universal love that comes close to compassion, a love that implies action, and connects us with the rest of this world. Carter Heyward writes about such love in Our Passion for Justice:

"Love like beauty is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being drawn toward. Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and beneficial relation with one's enemies and friends. Love creates righteousness or justice here on earth. To make love is to make justice...For this loving requires commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, of others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called "love.” Love is choice – not simply or necessarily a rational choice but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity – a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life..."

She is right. To choose to love is to join the human race fully. And as hard as it is to love the suffering world, to love another person in all their frailty, with their rich gift as well as their flaws, well that is even more heartbreakingly difficult. It takes understanding, acceptance, willingness to forgive, a good sense of humor, and a great deal of honesty and courage. It certainly takes a few hugs, too. Perhaps it is good that those young people who sit in my office so full of hope do not really believe me when I say that there is no such thing as a perfect marriage. Perhaps it is fortunate that they do not yet know that if their relationship is to last, they will have to choose to continue to love one another again and again. Perhaps not knowing gives them more courage. Whenever we are in a relationship for the long haul we have to make the choice to stay again and again. We choose to stay connected, to at least try to love each other, our friends, families. Some of us have chosen this congregation and this Unitarian Universalist faith. Like in any marriage we many find after a time that this free faith is also not perfect and yet choose to stay. For me this religion is the only choice that gives me the freedom I need to explore and discover, as I grow and craft my faith and my theology. But the real reason I stay is because here I feel connected to God and to the world. Here I can bring my whole self and be accepted and valued. And that ultimately is what the theology of hugs is about. It is one small expression of the universal love some call God and others might call our Buddha nature. May we learn to love that part of each other wisely! Amen.