An appraisal of ‘The Five Love Languages’ by Gary Chapman

Does your beloved really love you? How do you know?  Because he says so?  But do his actions match his ardent avowal, or does he merely provide the financial wherewithal and dispense knowledge like the household oracle? Nothing more?

As good New Church women we value the wisdom of our husbands, but sometimes despair when our unaided Martha chores overwhelm us.  If our menfolk persist in remaining oblivious they should learn ‘the five languages of love’ advocated by Gary Chapman. And what is more, all of them are endorsed by the Marriage Love teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Chapman explains that after thirty years of marital counselling he has come to the conclusion that each one of us has one or more love languages which delight us when we encounter them. He identified them as:

Words of Affirmation:  complimentary words of appreciation.

Quality Time: giving undivided time and attention, and doing things together.

“And by his stripes we are healed. ” (Isaiah 53:5 )

Healing is a miraculous process, and yet we never seem to give thanks for it. It would sound rather humdrum, like ‘thanks for the maintenance’, no more than an afterthought. We glory in creation and if we are responsive to the Lord’s bounty we give thanks every day, but maintenance is generally considered to be rather menial although it keeps us going. 

I am presently reminded of it as I am recovering from a minor foot operation in which a stainless-steel plate and eight screws were removed from my left foot. They had been inserted there three years previously, during a lengthy foot reconstruction, and had never settled comfortably in my flesh. Without them I feel liberated, though the scar makes its presence felt from time to time: mostly at untimely moments when I crave total healing. The worst aspect of feet is that they are forced to bear the full weight of the human being before they are ready.  Not my favourite body part – we are not good friends.

Spiritual healing is even more demanding. As we examine ourselves, we inevitably stumble across an area of our lives that badly needs reconstruction and repair. We are obliged to act in the opposite way from what we have been used to although we have only damaged tools to use. We are, because we are human, operating within the limits of mediate good. The Lord does not expect perfection at once, but if we try, and ask for His lavish help, He will help us to heal and enjoy the happiness that He has designed for us. By His coming He has enabled us to be liberated from the tyranny of pain and evil ‘and by his stripes we are healed’. He has freed us to be healthy through the strengthening of our will and love. ‘Thank You for the maintenance’ comes naturally at last.

Have you ever asked yourself who you are? You might be an amalgam of so many constructs that you are finding difficulty in locating your ‘real self’. Or you might find that you have become a stereotype that you no longer find valid –  a member of a clique, a group, a tribe that practices ‘groupthink’ and pressures you into following its precepts. You might find at times that you have become a caricature of who you set out to be and are deeply dissatisfied with certain aspects of your being. Your discomfort is better than self-satisfaction, which is often a sign of complacency, when rigorous introspection and self-examination would be more appropriate. Perhaps you feel that you have taken the wrong fork in the road and would like to retrace your steps. We all make mistakes, and in learning from them, we achieve growth, with the Lord’s help. In that we are blessed. We have a reprieve so readily at hand that we will be amazed.  The Lord has promised: 

Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11: 28-30

By renewing our vow to become a child of God we are given clear signposts to forge a new identity. We can follow Psalm One in overcoming scorn for those who are unlike us; we can release our love for others in practicing the Golden Rule. We can obey the Ten Commandments with a new intensity when we work on those that we find difficult to follow. We can try to measure up to the rigours of the Sermon on the Mount in ‘doing good to those who despitefully use us’. We can try, knowing that ‘the truth will set us free’, to become the best possible version of ourselves. Instead of living in a reactive haze, we can become liberated, proactive, and protected to the core of our being. We can invite the innocence of wisdom by willing ourselves to be obedient to the truths that are anchored in good.  We are promised that we can be as joyful as children in becoming who we are meant to be in the Divine Design. 

And the truth shall set you free.

I’ve said this all my life long with great satisfaction and with very little evidence. I’ve thought that the truth could set us free to choose something and oppose something else. We can choose good in all its forms, or evil in the multiplicity of its seductions, and the temptations of compromising evil spirits. It is a lifetime’s work which will continue throughout eternity. We will not be good in a flash. I remember attending the funeral of a prominent member of another denomination. It was said in the eulogy that what he was most looking forward to was sharing in Christ’s glory. And I thought, ‘No, no, it doesn’t work like that.’ And I was happy that we had doctrines to protect us against such distortions of the truth.

What I had not anticipated was the unwelcome intrusion of pain, and its entitled claims on my life. After all, we are born, not for ourselves, but for others, and here was my pain , insisting on its claims to my time and attention. It was alarming, to say the least.

Let me explain. Two years ago I had a foot reconstruction. Doesn’t sound like much, but it involved four operations in one – one to insert a stainless steel plate with eight screws, one to fashion a bone bridge on the top of the foot, and one to cut chips of ankle bone away to insert in the bridge to keep the foot steady. The fourth one merely cut and extended a tendon. This all took two and a half hours to make me a new woman. I woke with a woozy hoorah that it was all over and stepping it out would be my new normal. Wrong! The surgeon performed a very good operation, but he was no match for the arthritis and gout that attacked the damaged bones. He admitted to me afterwards, ‘I can do the operation, but I cannot control the healing’. He is a lovely man and most times he wins through. But this time he didn’t. I confess that I entered the ‘poor little me’ zone and succumbed to that most unpleasant zone of being – self pity.