relationships and community on Kissing

George Augustus Moore was an aristocratic writer, art critic, and dramatist. Influenced by the realist school in France, Moore was particularly influenced by Emile Zola. Ultimately, his writing would ...

The marriage of Queen Victoria and Albert (otherwise known as Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel — quite a mouthful!) was one for the ages. Their love and devotion to each other was remarkable, ...

“And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.”

Francis of Assisi was riding a horse down the road that went by a leper hospital situated far from Assisi, for then, as in biblical times, lepers were a rejected lot. Francis was not yet the saint of ...

Why is it so fun to be right? As pleasures go, it is, after all, a second-order one at best. Unlike many of life’s other delights—chocolate, surfing, kissing—it does not enjoy any mainline access to o...

Why is it so fun to be right? As pleasures go, it is, after all, a second-order one at best. Unlike many of life’s other delights—chocolate, surfing, kissing—it does not enjoy any mainline access to o...

You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world bu...

Mothers and infants do an enormous amount of touching. The first emotional comfort, touching and being touched by our mother, remains the ultimate memory of selfless love, which stays with us lifelong...

Almost everything we do touches a relationship in some way. Just think about your day. Whether you’re at home or at work, driving your car, playing, exercising, shopping, vacationing, worshipping at c...

"Love! The walks over soft grass, the smiles over candlelight, the arguments over everything else."

Baptism is like a wedding. It is a covenant act, a relationship-making agreement, in which commitments are made. A couple may love one another. But feelings can go up and down. That is why marriage is...

There’s a story told in Soviet Russia during the reign of Joseph Stalin. An elderly woman was praying in a Russian Orthodox Church. Walking to the front of the church, she came to a cross of Jesus and...

It’s easy to take off your clothes and have sex. People do it all the time. But opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams… that is being na...

An elderly couple lies in bed. She is not satisfied with the distance between them. She reminds him, “When we were young, you used to hold my hand in bed.” He hesitates, but in a few moments a wrinkle...

"To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder; but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all."

It is the prerogative and charm of beauty to win hearts.

Seduction is never ugly in appearance.

Relationships are a large playing field upon which other life contests and struggles get worked out.

Marriage is like twirling a baton, turning hand springs or eating with chopsticks. It looks easy until you try it.

Giving jump starts our relationship with God. It opens our fists so we can receive what God has for us.

In the Hebrew lexicon, there are multiple words for love, but one of my favorites is the word dod. Although it is often rendered “love,” dod refers specifically to sexual love and is better translated...

To the degree you experience God's love towards you - seeing you as beautiful and radiant - to that degree sex won't ruin your life.

"When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable."

What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow.

Love that reaches up is adoration. Love that reaches out is affection. But love that stoops is grace.

Combustion is also the phase of peak idealization. In his great book On Love, Stendhal once described a salt mine near Salzburg, Austria. The miners would stick small, leafless branches down into the ...

To bless someone is “to bow the knee” before them as a sign of honor and respect.

You never really know a person until you know how that person perceives himself. I’m sure you have had experi­ences like I’ve had when you were sharing with another person, and that sharing became dee...

Within this Christian vision of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating, and to say, I see who God is making you, ...

When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, the friendship which arises between them will very easily pass – may pass in the first half hour – i...