The Kiss of Affection

I am finally delving into The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis…a whole year and few months after my boyfriend gifted me with it.

So far I’ve only made through the Likings of Loves for the Sub-Human and partly through the first love, Affection, and I’m already a big fan.  I super identified with what Lewis had to say about interaction with nature, and readily agreed with his musings on patriotism.  Now for Affection.

As I have begun reading this chapter and what Lewis describes Affection to entail, I’m not sure I can easily identify Affection in my day-to-day life…but then again, the way he describes it to be a humble, underlying love…that might be the point.  Affection seems to be that love of familiarity; that love that you don’t recognize or miss until that subject that you had Affection for is gone, and suddenly you realize the impact of that love in your life.

The section that is catching my attention this morning is this:  

This blending and overlapping of the loves is well kept before us by the fact that at most times and places all three of them had in common, as their expression, the kiss. In modern England friendship no longer uses it, but Affection and Eros do. It belongs so fully to both that we cannot now tell which borrowed it from the other or whether there were borrowing at all. To be sure, you may say that the kiss of Affection differs from the kiss of Eros. Yes; but not all kisses between lovers are lovers’ kisses. Again, both these loves tend—and it embarrasses many moderns—to use a “little language” or “baby talk.”-- Lewis, C. S. "Affection." The Four Loves. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960. 35. Print.

This is extremely beautiful.  New lovers, especially in my mind those that are newlyweds, find pleasure and excitement in their first kisses of married life.  Theirs is the language of lovers; it infuses all that they do.  Yet, their kisses, after a while, may not be so new, yet the love is not gone from them The love only appears in a new, warmer, more familiar form. There is a difference in the way new couples kiss and the way my grandparents kiss.  There is an awkward, shy, fluttery feeling in the holding of hands between a courting couple.  There is a tender, Affectionate feeling in the holding of hands between my parents.  

When does the Erotic kiss of young lovers turn into the Affectionate kiss of an old(er) couple?  I suppose only time and the youthfulness of love can answer that question.  Then again, they might always be together and, in a way, inseparable.  It is evident to me when my mom runs to open the door for my dad before he walks in the house that there is both repetition and the excitement of newness that inspires her to do this. The same with watching my grandpa grab my grandma’s hand to help her step up a curb.  The kiss of Affection can be old and new, familiar and breath-taking…warm as a hearth and cool as a dewy morning. This is the kiss that makes waiting till marriage to kiss worthwhile to me.  As exciting as is the kiss of Eros, equally exciting to me is the kiss of Affection. Both have a beauty which demands reverence and admiration.   

Such is the love experienced in any vocation as it progresses.  The vibrancy of the young Sister taking her first vows is just as spectacular to me as an aged Sister of the order passing on her wisdom.  Even the love of religious women for their Groom takes on a new shape, despite the never aging Lord.  For them, the love of Affection has even more depth to it, since their Groom is Ever-Ancient and Ever-New.  If God’s love for us could be described as Affectionate at all, then it was Affectionate from the beginning.  What a beautiful way to experience love (and I’m still only on the first love!  So excited for the rest of this book!!!). 

Oh, and I couldn't resist a picture of the SSVMs with that paragraph above...I have a friend that joined and another joining in the next month!  Love them!!