In recent years, I have matured in my understanding of and need for intimacy. Much of this is a result of having been married for almost twenty-five years. Perhaps too many individuals, like my younger self, have made intimacy synonymous with romantic love. While intimacy and love are definitely connected, intimacy is far greater and more beautiful than just romantic love.
Intimacy can be explained like viewing the colors of love through a prism.
I have longed looked at love as color. Perhaps in another post I will expound on love as color. For now, I will briefly introduce the notion.
Just as there are many yet defined colors, so too love is varied yet confined. Love is limited only by its nature, like anything of reality. Love, like color, can only be seen when at play. Let me pause here and repeat that for this to be fully appreciated. Love can only be seen when at play. Yes, please look at love as an act of play. Love is so essential that we must remember how much work it takes to choose love. Love is always a choice! Yet the work required and the choice necessary don't take away from love as play. Joyful play is alway work and always a choice. So we must never forget that love is an act of play, an act of joy done with another or with others. Okay, now onto color.
You never see just blue, you see the blue sky for example. You never see just red, you see a red heart. And some colors are made possible when mixing or joining together for a common purpose. For example, blue and red together make purple. And some colors when placed next to one another complement or vibrate together, like purple and yellow. There is an entire field of color theory, not only to help artists use color effectively, but to understand the psychology and wisdom of colors on the human condition.
Well, love as color is an entry for another time. I want to focus on the prism of intimacy. So for now, just keep your awarness of color theory in mind and your experiences of color at heart.
The myriad of colors from light is viewable through a prism. The light is there whether you see it or not. And the colors are only visible to the human eye when you penetrate a ray of light with a triangular, transparent shape, like a cut diamond. The diamond refracts the light off its surfaces causing the optical effect of spreading out the light into visible colors. So how does this relate to intimacy?
Well, intimacy and love are never without each other, just as light and color exist simultaneously. However we can only see the colors of light when shining off a diamond, for example. So with intimacy and love, we can see the types (colors) of love when (the Light of) Love shines off the persons exchanging love. And in this exchanging love, intimacy is experienced.
The multi-faceted exchanges of love are visible through the correct lens (the prism) that God has designed and incorporates in His plan for life and love. Intimacy is the interplay of exchanging love, not the prism (it's the lens of faith) , not the diamond (it's the persons who love), not the colors (it's the types of love), nor the light (it's the source of love). This is perhaps why intimacy and love are sometimes confused or intimacy is limited to just one kind of love. Our hedonistic and narcissistic culture does not help our understanding of love nor intimacy either, but I digress.
Intimacy is that interplay of exchanging love between two or more persons who share the love they first received from God. So two people can share intimacy in just an emotional loving way. For example, two friends share an intimate moment of joy when sharing wonderful news. Sally tells Jane that she is engaged to Steve, her long-time boyfriend. Perhaps that intimate moment burst on the scene like a sunshine of colors from yellow to red. Or a parent shares an intimate moment of sorrow with his or her child when explaining an impending divorce and its impact on their family. Perhaps that intimate moment refracted a heavy ray of colors from blues to deep, dark purples. Hopefully you see the point.
Again intimacy is the interplay of exchanging love, which has a myriad of colors. Sharing tragic news may not seem like a loving moment at first glance, but every moment of sorrow requires love to sustain us. This is clear when you pause and look closely through the prism of intimacy, when you see in the moment of exchange that love shines or refracts off the individuals who experience intimacy, that closeness made possible because of exchanging love. If there is no love exchanged, there is no intimacy; there are no colors to be seen, nor light shining. Without intimacy, there is only darkness, a void of light, the absence of love.
So intimacy can involve different types of love, not just romantic love. And intimacy has a range of intensity. Friends experience intimacy when they exchange love. Such intimacy need not always be experienced from a place of vulnerability, which is often the most intense type of intimacy. For example, two friends may simply have an inside joke that only the two of them understand. That's because they shared at one point in their friendship an intimate moment that made them laugh together. So intimacy has a spectrum of possibilities because love can be exchanged in a variety of ways, depending on the type of relationship between persons and the quality of the moment mutually experienced. Wherever there is love exchanged, intimacy exists to some degree.
The layers of intimacy involve physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual interactions. Any interaction between two individuals involves all four layers to varying degrees. The level of intimacy is related to the varying layers of interactions. In God's plan for life and love, a married couple seeks to have a mutual exchange of love so all layers of intimacy are reciprocated equally between husband and wife. This spousal intimacy is designed by God to be free, full, fruitful, and forever. Therefore the mutual commitment to intimacy between husband and wife is essential for marriage. This is why the Church teaches that marriage involves the reciprocal gift of self between spouses. Spousal intimacy goes far beyond romantic love. Spousal intimacy is a lifetime of choosing the joy found in giving oneself completely to thou's beloved.
So the prism of intimacy bursts with a myriad of colorful love, ranging from friendship to marriage to family.
