The Embodiment of Love

I’ve been thinking lately – in light of recent events, near and far – about how pain and grief sit in our bodies. Often we humans like to make a distinction between mind, body, and spirit, as I often do. But in fact, all the thinking and feeling we do happens in the body; the physiological and psychological, the intellectual and emotional, all happen within the body. And our sacred inter-connectedness with other humans, and with all other beings and entities, likewise transpires between bodies – the endless continuity of matter and energy from which we all come, and to which we all will ultimately return, all part of the expansion (and eventual contraction) of the universe, of everything known to us, the endless cycle of the stars.

This grand scale of things is important context – always awesome and often strangely comforting. (I have often wondered why the sense I have of my own tininess when looking at a starry sky brings a sense of relief and release, rather than erasure.) But grief is particular – rests in our particular bodies and grieves other particular bodies. Which is maybe why it – unlike worry, or frustration – is often exacerbated by beauty or awe on a grand scale. As in, how dare the rest of the world go on being spectacular, or even just everyday mundane, when my own heart is hurting so, when this important other being is lost to me, or to the world.

Then yesterday was Martin Luther King Day at church, and I began to ponder the great beings who love on a grand scale – the leaders, teachers, prophets, bodhisattvas, who have such loving compassion for all humanity, such faith in our inter-connectedness, that they can lead us toward enlightenment, even at a danger to their own very particular selves. And it occurred to me then – not for the first time, but with new meaning – that love, too, is embodied. That it reaches us at a cellular, neurological level. And that, in fact, grief is itself evidence of this embodied love. So much of what we miss when we miss someone is the fact of their body – the reassurance of their touch, the music of their laughter, their twinkling eye or mischievous grin. And in this moment, as I recall those I’ve loved and lost, I think: we can do for one another what the great ones have done for humanity – maybe even better than they could. Because I think the love poured into us, that we pour into one another, is what remains, long after our beloveds are gone. I think the pain of fresh grief over time can evolve, so that the pain of loss is less often foremost, and the embodiment of love in us is more presently felt. This is not a small thing, this evolution – not a given, not to be expected, often excruciating and observing no timeline but its own. Even so, it does happen, maybe more often than not, given sufficient time and healing. Love endures, in other words. Love remains – in memory, in the body and, in that way, in the world. I like to think of it expanding as the universe itself expands.

We sang a song on Sunday that we’d sung before together as a choir (though our director often instructs us now that we are never the same choir twice) – a piece written by a dear friend and colleague. The last time we’d sung it, she was still alive, and though it was directed now by someone new, we could feel her still with us – nudging our method, admonishing us to mind our esses. Our current director, someone she had mentored in life, introduced the piece by acknowledging his confidence that he would not be standing before us in this new role had it not been for her investment of care in him. The sun of her smile had shone on all of us, truly – but for me, though I had followed her career for years, her real friendship came to me at a crucible time. “You are such a gift to me,” she’d said in a quiet moment – and the shock of her candor had made me feel truly seen, even as I rushed to assure her that she was the gift to all of us. And she was. And we missed her. All of this was with me as we sang her song of courage and bold intention – her courage, her intention, and her love, now embodied in all of us who have known her. She is with us, in us. Her love endures.

. . . in grateful memory of Amanda Thomas