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Some years ago, when I opened my Valentine’s Day card from my wife, inside she had written: “I love you with all my intestines.” Taking that too literally might make you wretch a bit or worry about us as a couple. But it made me smile.
She was referencing what I call my favorite word in all the Bible: “Splagchnizomai” (Pronounced: “Splagh-Neats-Oh-My-ee”) “Splagchnizomai” denotes a kind of deep-level love and compassion that far outstrips romantic love. It means something like: “To be moved, as in the bowels, hence to be moved with compassion” It denotes a deep seated “feeling” and “emotion,” a visceral reaction of love and empathy.
We often say we “have a gut feeling” about something. Turns out, many ancient cultures agreed. The Greeks believe our emotions literally lived in our gut, and were not just created in them. Ancient Vedic and Chinese culture (and many others) also locate love and other emotions not in the heart, but in the gut. Civilization, as far back as you can look, locate “emotion” and “love” in what we’d call “the core,” or the “gut.”
When our emotions get the best of us, when stress, worry, and anxiety are all we feel, it’s stomach-churning. When we are filled with love, if our gut feels love and compassion, often the entire rest of our body and spirit feels centered and safe too.
This word shows up in key Bible verses. In “the feeding of the five thousand,” Jesus “has compassion” for a crowd that followed him even when he tried to get away.
In the story of “The Good Samaritan,” it’s that foreigner who sees a hurt Jewish man and “felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds…” And, in the story of the Prodigal Son, it is the Father who, seeing his wayward son, “was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.”
It’s widely believed that the Father in this last story is something of a stand-in for God. Taken with all the examples listed here, you get a powerful overall message about God. God has this deep-level compassion and love for the world.
We celebrate Valentine’s Day this month, and we throw down the phrase “I love you with all my heart,” with wild abandon.
But far too often, the heart-love of the world feels like it’s a mile wide and an inch deep. It’s schmaltzy, romantic love, forgotten the moment the rose wilts and the chocolate wrappers are in the trash.
But there’s a deeper love. A love you feel in your gut. A love that moves you to your gut. Maybe it starts with how you feel about your children and your individual family. Maybe this is the place we first notice it. We think of them and our gut literally moves. The butterflies flutter.
God invites us to broaden that out, and feel that compassion for all of God’s children. We’re called to love Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
Gays and lesbians, and those who hate them. Immigrants, and those who would deport them. Our own families, and the families of folks we resent-the-hell out of.
That’s the love and compassion God calls us to.
So, while I’ve never yet seen the Valentine’s Day card with this greeting, I’d pay good money for one. Because the card God wishes we’d send each other every day is:
“I love you with all my intestines.”
In this deeply divided time in our world, that’s the love that can save us all.
ERIC FOLKERTH is senior pastor of Kessler Park United Methodist Church.
