This time is the time of the body. It is the time of elegance, dress, dyed hair, perfumes, deodorants, and powders. It is the time of beautification, and all of this is expensive, and the resulting burdens on the individual and societal levels are many and many. Women who show off are, from a behavioral standpoint, pretentious.

Man, in this age, has become a slave to physical obsessions (18) It eats it, gnaws it, and chews it up. The girl longs to be told that she is beautiful and attractive. The young man also wishes to be said to be handsome and elegant. It's all about elegance and beauty, it's all about appearance, and nothing mimics the mind. Nothing mimics the inner man. This is naivety, as we do not fully know the dire consequences that will result decades later.

Hence, two things control the philosophy of the body in this time: lust and consumption. As for lust, in order for a person to remain a slave to what this time offers, what is required is that you be a slave so that you do not know what is being plotted against you, what is being said about you, and what is harming you. Your slavery and enslavement is a basic condition for a group that wants you to see without thinking, to hear without thinking, and to speak without thinking. Lust is necessary, on this level, in order for you to become a person with destructive desires that you seek and they come to kill you. What is required is for the instincts to rise up and revolt within you, to the point where you are no longer able to restrain yourself and restrain your desires. As for consumption, this is because the elegance, beauty, adornment, and adornment of your body requires a lot of money. A person makes everything cheap for the sake of his body, for the sake of his ego, for the sake of self-love and self-love. Where are these if the pockets are empty?

The philosophy of the body, in its contemporary sense, has an economic dimension, as well as a political dimension that reflects on humans, with the intention of further self-worship that leads to self-destruction. For this reason, those who argue believe that adorning and beautifying the body is part of a strategy adopted by what we have adopted to call the industrial West, which targets the Third World (developing countries), with the intention of transforming it into a consumption market for Western products, which may not be achieved before people are brought to their knees by various temptations. Dreams of domination will not be achieved unless minds and souls melt.

I once read in Al-Nahar newspaper in particular that women and girls on the Korean Peninsula spend approximately four billion US dollars annually on adornment and make-up. For the population of North and South Korea (67 million people), this means seventy dollars per person annually.

In fact, the philosophy of the body in its contemporary sense is very complex. Anyone who meditates on it may be lost if he does not know what he wants. It is necessary to know the basic criteria of this philosophy. We should also know and realize the position of the body in this philosophy. The status of smooth skin, and the status of fashion itself. We should know what this philosophy of the body wants from man, and also what man expects from it. Do you see how the philosophy of the body holds up if man is made of dust? The philosophy of this time does not seem serious about contemplating and responding to this question.

Now, due to contemporary body philosophy, today's pharmacies are different from yesterday's pharmacies. Yesterday, pharmacies were only centers for selling medical drugs, but today it immediately occurs to anyone who enters a pharmacy that there is confusion between cosmetics and medicine, between beauty and healing, between adornment and life. In fact, it is not permissible to separate in this time what is for the health of the body and what is for the adornment of the body, which will inevitably confuse and mislead people. He will not be able to ignore adornment in his quest for healing, but rather he will seek adornment and its tools as something inseparable from the request for healing itself. Do you see how the ancients viewed the body?

The question is very important. On the one hand, it helps us understand the movement of interest in the body throughout history. It also helps us achieve a state of self-awareness so that we do not get lost in the midst of life’s various temptations. I will now direct you with me to Plato, the famous Greek philosopher, because I see that he has something that can be contemplated and heard on this level.

When we read Plato's theory of ideals, we find ourselves faced with two things on which his entire theory is based: the spiritual world (the world of ideals), and the material world. Plato's theory of ideals is the basis of moral theory and theological theory, so to speak. Just as the longing of everything is for its source, so the soul according to Plato, and as he himself says to us, is a prisoner of the body, and must be freed from it in order to achieve its complete freedom. But this does not happen without the death of the body. What does this mean?

According to Plato, it means that the relationship between the soul and the body is fleeting, and that divorce between them is imminent, with the death of the body. Hence, the concept of the person according to Plato is ambiguous, because his view of man is not based on harmony between the faculties of the human personality, which needs the body in order to translate his personality and express itself.

It is as if Plato does not see the necessity of the body for the life of the soul, the opposite of which contemporary psychology has expressed in the phrase (Psycho-somatic), meaning that the human being is both a soul and a body.

The soul in the theory of Platonic ideals is anxious and disturbed, and is not freed from its prison, i.e. the body, except through death. This means that freedom of the soul is impossible, before the death of the body. Again, what does this mean?

It means that as long as a person is in the body, he is in turmoil and anxiety. The question always asked is: Can't a person be at peace while he is in the body? What prevents us from living inner peace without the death of the body, and before the death of the body? This is not possible for Plato, but it is available to us from the Christian point of view. The Lord says: “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives peace.” And also: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be cherished.” The holy martyrs and righteous people lived this peace, otherwise it is impossible to understand their patience with the injustice of the enemies. They all called for loving enemies, just as their master did, who forgave those who crucified him from the cross.

Plato and other ancients saw a secondary role for the body in the life of the soul. The result was that the freedom of the soul could not be lived before the death of the body.

However, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, we hear the divine Apostle Paul saying, in his speech about the body: “...but to nourish and nurture it just as Christ treats the church.” Paul, here, is not talking about the body specifically, but rather emphasizes taking care of the body, in comparison with Christ’s love for the church.

Christianity, from its beginning, was a stumbling block for the Greek mind, whose supporters and followers continue to this day. If we read the Philokalia of the Ascetic Fathers, compiled by Saint Peter of Damascus, we find what explains the soul’s need for the body in order to achieve the virtues (see the aforementioned book, Arabized by Bishop Habib Pasha, chapter: “The physical virtues are tools for the virtues of the soul,” pp. 55-57). Likewise, Saint Gregory Palamas, in a wonderful sermon that he wrote about fasting, teaches us that there is a spiritual effort made by the body, the soul’s need for the body for its advancement and progress.

The physical and the psychological are inseparable in a person, and one cannot be reduced to elevate the other, at the expense of the other. In fact, in history there are those who were influenced by Plato and learned from him. Origen, for example, is the famous scholar, who believed and taught in the pre-existence of the soul. What did Origen say on this level?

Origen taught that the human soul existed at a stage before the creation of the world. At that time, the soul was living in the immaterial world, meaning that the soul, according to Origen’s teaching, was before the body, and was not created with the formation of the body in the womb. In other words, souls descend into bodies when the latter are formed in the womb (see his famous book de principe). Thus, the Creator waits for those who marry in order to send the souls into the wombs of women with the formation of sperm in the womb. Perhaps more than one breath comes out when there is more than one body in the womb. As for Christianity, on this level, it believed that the soul is created at the moment the fetus is formed, neither before nor after its formation. The question after this is: Why do souls descend into bodies when they are immaterial? What calls her to this descent, according to Origen? Why didn't she stay above where she was enjoying peace and happiness?

Some souls, according to Origen's teaching, wanted to remain in goodness, while many other souls had a change in their wills, and this is what created evil. That is, souls fell and collapsed due to the entry of evil that struck them while they were in the upper world. The descent of souls into bodies made them imprisoned by bodies, and mortgaged by bodies. But why was the soul entering the body?

The descent of souls into bodies, according to Origen's teaching, was for the sake of repentance and atonement for sins. This means that Origen gives the body a role in the soul’s repentance and remorse. But the body and human incarnation, from Origen’s perspective, were the result of corruption entering the wills of souls, which means, in the final analysis, that the problems and sins of the soul were what entailed the torment of the body and the struggle of the body. In order to support his theory, Origen began searching in the Bible for passages that would support his thinking and serve his saying and theory. In the end, he found the following saying: “Before I humbled myself, I went astray, but now I have kept your commandments” (Psalm 119:67).

However, the Church did not accept Origen's teaching, but rather denounced it at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. (For more, see what the Tri-Mercies Father John Meyendorff wrote in his book: “Christ in Eastern Thought” SVS. And also: “Ecclesiastical Law,” by Archimandrite Ananias Kassab: pp. 473-474-475-478-479). What do we learn, in brief, from the teachings of Plato and Origen that we mentioned briefly?

We learn that the body is secondary to the soul. Perhaps this secondary nature of the body to these two aforementioned thinkers is one of the elements that instructed the sick and defective human mind to deem the body permissible and permit it to indulge in various desires and vices.

However, Plato and Origen, as is known from their biographies, were virtuous and sober, even to a degree of asceticism, which prompted Origen to devote life to the truth. This is an issue worth mentioning, although it raises contradictions. What does the Bible say about the duality of body and soul?

The Bible does not deny the body, nor does it reject the materialism of human existence. He does not call for despising the body in exchange for exalting the spirit. The Bible has a balanced view of all of these, such that the body is not despised, and the soul is not an airy self. In this regard, the divine Apostle Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, which you have received from God?” (1 Corinthians 16:19). In fact, we do not find in the Apostle Paul in all of his letters any indication that the body is a prison for the soul, as is the case with Plato. The body is a temple and a stable for the Holy Spirit. In addition, the presence of the soul in the body is not associated, from a Christian point of view, with tension and anxiety, such that tension in the soul disappears with the death of the body, and it gains its freedom. The soul is free not through the death of the body, but through living according to the will of God (Galatians 5: 13-15), and also: (Galatians 5: 16-24).

In Christianity, there is no contradiction between the soul and the body. The praying person prays with his entire body. Christianity does not see man as a collection of parts, nor does it reduce man to parts. Man is one in Christ, and he is all created in the image of God.

Man in Christianity is a person, not just a body. The image of God is not only in the soul, nor only in the body. Man is not only the soul nor only the body. Didn’t the prophet Joel say: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh”? In the expression of the Prophet there is an indication that man is whole, otherwise his words would have no meaning. It is impossible, and it is not enough, for the Spirit of God to be poured out on the human body alone, for the human being is more than a body.

Thus, in Christianity we do not have words and teachings about the badness of the body and the inferiority of the body. Throughout its history, the Church has fought anyone who saw and taught that the body is despised, so it separated from the community those who saw marriage as dealing with corruption and impurity. It is true that the Church sees virginity as superior to marriage. But not in the sense of corruption and inferiority of marriage. The Church has never diminished the sanctity of marriage, nor has it taught in all of its history that holiness is far from the scope of marriage (SYZYGY). It has always believed, meaning the Church, that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and that man nourishes his body, just as the Lord treats the Church (Ephesians 5).

- A purely physical need

However, a few decades ago, we began to hear about what is called a “pure physical need.” And here we are now, in the name of pure need, and in the name of freedom, highlighting desires and seeing them as natural and obligatory, because they are in our consciousness, and not our consciousness, as pure needs. We have accepted the release of instincts, and have tolerated indulging them.

Man went too far on this level, and the necessity of sexual freedom took root in people's souls. The mind absorbed it and began its quiet pursuit, little by little, towards free, unrestrained sexual practices (promiscuity). No one, as a result of such freedom, can truly imagine the burdens and devastating consequences that will ensue on human societies at the individual and societal levels.

Talking about purely physical needs and unconditional sexual freedom means, in depth, that a person can be reduced to a body, or be satisfied with it as a body, or be treated just as a body. But this talk is very dangerous, as a human being is more than a body; it is psychological, spiritual, and physical energies. It is a complex set of creations and beauties that inevitably transcend the limits of the pure body. It is naive to say that he is just flesh and bones.

Moreover, the data of contemporary psychology do not indicate that the human being is merely a body. Rather, as we mentioned above, we always hear the phrase: “a psycho-somatic being,” meaning that it consists of a body and a soul.

However, our era tampers with the body, and publicly calls for the consumption of the body. This contains signs and signs of human contempt at its core.

Our era is truly strange. On the one hand, it is based on a modern Manichaeism that despises the body through its objectification, and through calling for the release of its instincts and the explosion of its desires. On the other hand, this era calls, more than all previous eras, for the necessity of beautifying the body, its adornment, and attention to its clothing. All of this is only for the body to become more attractive, and therefore more beautiful and shiny for the sake of desires and instincts. Pornists believe that consuming the body is a natural matter without objection, because the legitimacy of using the body comes from the fact that the desires of the body exist in the body. A person's body is permissible, so he can do whatever he wants with it. But the question that permissive people do not know the answer to is: Is it permissible to deem permissible everything that is natural? Isn't there a reason for self-control for the sake of good conduct and a calm life? Doesn't experience tell us anything?

The contemporary world, through sexual freedom in particular, we clearly see it denying the sanctity of the body and its role and mission in human life, and this would confuse the mind and lead to the objectification of man. Misuse of the body results from a disease of the will, as St. Maximus the Confessor teaches us. A person has no hope of well-being unless he is freed from the bondage of the passions:

“Since my youth, many passions have warred against me, but you, my Savior, have sustained me and delivered me.” We have no hope of well-being unless our souls are disgusted by faults and deviations. But it is still too early to talk about liberation from whims and desires in this time. The media is lustful among us, and this is a dangerous matter, and a heavy price must be paid before our path can be straightened. The desired emancipation is not only a matter of the individual, but rather a programmed mission undertaken by the state to cleanse the media of its toxins. Without it, the issue seems difficult, and wellness seems a distant dream until now.

-Is sex a pure need?

Now we come to a point worth raising:

Is sex a pure need? Is it true that all physical needs are pure needs? Therefore, is it true that sex is a pure need?

No, not all physical needs are purely physical, because mere neglect of a pure need leads to dysfunction and death. For example, thirst is a need, sleep is a need, hunger is a need, breathing is a need, and its shame. With these aforementioned needs, whoever neglects them must die physically, as it is impossible for a person to live without responding to or meeting them. Because how can someone live who does not breathe, who does not sleep, who does not drink, and who does not eat? But sex, which some people like to call a need, is not the same as hunger, thirst, and sleep. This means that a person does not die if he does not know gender. Christian monasticism leads the monks, by the power of God's grace, and through sincere struggle based on love of God and neighbor, to transfiguration and transcendence, such that the saints who have completely dedicated themselves to God are constantly aflame with divine adoration, and inflamed by the divine love that overwhelms them. The monk who is faithful to the vows of the Gospel, and who has pledged himself to voluntary poverty, obedience burning with joy, chastity, and purity of heart and body, is a person who transcends gender, and does not stop at it. Sex, which is the call of the body, is transformed as an existential energy, from an energy that seeks the quenching of the body, to an energy that elevates the human being to being filled with divine love and being satisfied with it.

However, contemporary life, or rather the contemporary philosophy of the body, confuses people and constantly seeks to convince them, especially through the highly tempting contemporary media, that the absence of sex, or the neglect of sex from daily life, is an intolerable, intolerable, and useless issue. Indeed, the absence of sex means entering into deprivation, for which there is no point or meaning.

It is as if the contemporary media, and as it appears to us through observation, is telling all people: You cannot live without sex, or without the woman’s body, its charms, and the explosive desires within its scope. Women soften your life, refresh your being, and quench your thirst for beauty in all its meanings. In fact, contemporary philosophy seems to me to be serious or moving toward quenching men's thirst, by talking excessively about women's needs, which means, in the simplest case, that existing philosophy is masculine in its foundations and goals. And women will quench their thirst if men quench their thirst.

Since the current media is highly sexual, and even seeks to sexualize memory, reason, and imagination, it is very difficult to follow the path of sobriety, reason, and discipline in our time. I remember one day when I was on a couch in a hospital and I heard screaming mixed with crying. When I asked about the matter, I was told that the one crying was a young man who had been in an accident that would prevent him from having children in the future. They did not say that he escaped death, but rather they said: The poor person will not be able to have children. People's judgments have been naturalized. They have naturalized their thinking. This is sickness and shortsightedness.

I do not deny that discipline, sobriety, and prudence are matters that today seem truly difficult and beyond description, because lustful attacks on humans are many in this time. However, discipline is possible at all times, and its virtue is something that is desirable for the soul that thirsts for truth and perfection. A person who seeks a noble goal, or a worthwhile cause, does not fear difficulties, nor is he deterred from jihad out of his desire for a life whose expanses he truly longs to enter and taste its nectar and consolation. Consider, for example, the case of the hunger strikers, how they begin the march towards death for the sake of a cause that appeals to their souls, so they sacrifice their bodies, and even their lives, for its sake. Thus, you see them going on a hunger strike forcefully and stubbornly, seeking a better quality of life.

Therefore, we are in an era of the deification of sex, the beautification of the body, the highlighting of charms, and the release of charms, but how long will this last? How long does the fire last? In fact, if we assume that sex is an indispensable need, and that life cannot continue without it, which we see in teenagers today has instilled in their being that having sex is a necessity, or even an urgent necessity that they are completely unable to resist, then pornography becomes an obligation, and therefore a justification. This is impossible and unreasonable, as permissibility in itself is enough to convince a person little by little that sex is a need. This need is enough to push us towards permissibility. Permissibility would lead to excess that would firmly establish our feet on the path of slavery. This contradicts the principle of growth and sound conduct and balance in our behavior. The best example that we find convincing in this regard is smoking. Smoking begins as a practice that comes to satisfy a sense of masculinity, but it soon becomes a habit that a person cannot give up, so he continues, justifying and revealing his weakness until what befalls him befalls him. With time, smoking becomes a need, because need and habit form a mechanism that enslaves a person, so he becomes lost and is no longer able to deal with matters with discernment.

Advocates and those demanding sexual freedom believe that refusing sex entails disavowing the body. Denying the body is in itself a sign of contempt for the body. The dignity of bodies, in their view, comes from dealing with them however agreed upon, just because there are bodies. As for those who do not know about sex, do not have sex, or have not had sex, they are, in the eyes of advocates of sexual freedom, ignorant people, because they deny what exists in their nature, and because whoever is ignorant of his body and does not recognize its secrets, as advocates of sexual freedom claim, is a human being. Ignorant, uncivilized, and does not enjoy the openness and sociability necessary in this era.

The truth is that many people accept this claim, and see modernity as the attainment of sexual liberation and complete, unconditional and uncontrolled freedom.

Advocates of sexual freedom are, unfortunately, a group that has a large audience. Indeed, this large segment of people seems to have a real influence on the minds and practices of the public. However, these uncontrolled practices, which are based on freedom without limits or restrictions, are merely a maneuver that has nothing to do with modernity, near or far. Arguments and claims based on irresponsible and unrestricted freedom cannot withstand the tests and challenges of life, because a sober and balanced life has its own conditions and standards. The elderly know very well that life is not safe unless it is based on discipline, reason, patience, deliberation, etc.

The problem with those demanding sexual freedom is that they see this freedom as a goal and an end, and this is a major flaw. And a big illness.

Here we cannot help but remember what the divine Apostle Paul said, so let us hear: “Brothers, all things are permissible for me, but not all things are agreeable. All things are permissible for me, but let me not have dominion over anything... The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body... Do you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of an adulteress? Far from it...” (1 Corinthians 6:12-10). what is the meaning of these words?

The Apostle Paul teaches us through the aforementioned passage that what is in our nature is created, and therefore what is created is natural. But the problem is that what is natural is not permissible, in the sense of permissible. Permissibility of the body generates abuse of the body (19) Which is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Here, permissive people or those demanding sexual freedom may object to the words of the Apostle Paul with the following statement: Why does the Apostle say that everything agrees? Why are there agree and disagree? Why is there disagreement if we are talking about natural things? Isn't natural compatible with being natural? Doesn't ignoring sex lead to contempt for God's creation, and even contempt for God himself? Doesn't ignoring sex mean that we reject God's gift?

The legitimacy of sexual life from a Christian perspective comes from the fact that sex is a divine invention implanted in the fabric of our being and body. However, this legitimacy, so to speak, is linked to laws that must be observed in order for the use of sex to be in the line drawn by its creator. Having sex, however agreed upon, does not stem from sane and rational freedom.

The so-called freedom in this time does not mean breaking the laws of the universe, nature, and the body. The issue is conditional, and talking about liberated freedom is meaningless and useless.

We in Christianity do not despise sex when we remind pornographers of natural laws. Nor do we deny the magnificence of creation and the greatness of the Creator when we talk about discipline. When we struggle against sin, we do not look up to the body, but rather bring it into the newness of behavior and newness of life that is in Christ. When we remember that everything has laws that move and direct it, this means that we should be people who love ourselves and our bodies to the highest degree of love, because in our faith, the human being is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Demanding sexual freedom does not serve wellness, and there is no health in it, because such freedom is based solely on the desire to make the body an instrument of pleasure, a vessel for pleasure, and a commodity for consumption. Christianity, again, does not deny sex when it talks about what is permissible and what is not permissible. A Christian woman who advocates forbidden things and sees sex on the list of forbidden things is, in my view, not an attractive Christian role model. Christianity does not teach anyone to fear the body, nor does it teach devotion to the affairs of the body to the point of worship and slavery at the same time. Christianity, through the words of the divine Apostle Paul, taught about what is permissible and what is not permissible only from the angle of eliminating the confusion between the will of God and the will of man. The goal of Christianity, in short, is to teach us the way to deal appropriately with everything within the laws set for everything. Hence, the problem of Christianity is not with sex, but rather with minds struck by wear and tear and gnawed by desires, who saw sex as the ultimate goal. Our era is the furthest from understanding freedom. Let those who are complacent be careful, because the so-called freedom is a ball of fire. Do you think that sex is something that we would die if we gave it up, suspended it for a noble goal, or limited it to the framework prescribed by natural laws? If sex is not a need, doesn't this mean that a person can live without sex?

The answer to this question addresses two things: sex is a need, on the one hand, and it is not a need, on the other hand. Sex is an urgent need as long as you see naked bodies everywhere and seduction and temptation everywhere (20).

Sex is a need in this time because bodies are beautified, decorated and perfumed. Sex is a need because the girl saw sexual freedom as psychological compensation for the inferiority she suffered and still suffers from, both in her home and in the home of her family, from her brothers, from her relatives, from her husband, and from all males. This compensation comes as an opportunity that tickles the depths of the girl to make her feel that she is an equal to the man, and that, thanks to sexual freedom, she has become able to remove the injustice from herself and find peace. Of course, not every girl may look at the issue from this angle, but usually there is a collective role model practiced by girls that can be called “fashion,” or something similar. However, fashion is not just that. It is a cure for female oppression on the one hand, and a fulfillment of male lust on the other.

The pornographers or those who demand sexual freedom come back to say that denying sex, or rather abstaining from it or neglecting it, would lead to illness of the body, which in their view means expecting many organic disorders as a result of neglecting sex. This means again, that removing these disorders entails entering into sexual experience and knowing the sensations of the body. In order for these people to defend their thesis, you see them formulating phrases from the medical dictionary, through which they may refute their opponents, support their argument, and defend their point of view.

- Confusing love and sex

If love cannot be understood in isolation from sex, especially in this time, then we must say that every love that is not associated with sex, and is not embodied in sexual activity, is incomplete and truncated.

But can't there be love between two human beings without sex? What do we say about friendship, for example? What do we say about a mother's love for her children? And about the father’s love for his children? What do we say about our love for our deceased loved ones? How do we understand the monk’s love for his Lord? And the priest’s love for his flock? Finally, how can we understand God's love for us?

The fact that sex must accompany love would make sex utilitarian. But why is it necessary for sex to accompany love and love with sex as long as the examples are not associated with the sexual act? You see where love is based in the case of rape (21)?

Thus, it is not easy to say that love and sex are intertwined, and that they are inseparable. The forced combination of love and sex is unjustified, unnecessary, and pointless.

The reality of life teaches us, with certainty, that love is deeper, deeper, and more established than being confined to sex, or expressing its identity through sex. It is really strange to say that love and sex are intertwined just because a man and a woman, a boy or a girl, meet.

What is admiration?

Every admiration between a young man and a girl, a man and a woman, cannot necessarily be limited to physical affairs only. An admiration that stops at the borders of the body, is satisfied with the body, stays with the body, and is quenched by the body is truncated, incomplete, and has no meaning. Admiration limited to the body is not admiration, and although admiration includes physical elements, it does not stop at the body and is not limited to it. Admiration cannot stop at the beauty of the body, the good appearance, the color of the hair and eyes, and the smoothness of the skin, despite the eye’s attraction to the beautiful face and slender stature, because the body leads to sagging and aging. It atrophies and wrinkles. Hence, it is impossible to build admiration on a variable and fleeting element. Admiration, in my opinion, must take into account inner radiance, rely on it, and build on it. Therefore, admiration does not last unless it is built on constants and based on unchangeable elements. The beloved is loved not because of his body, but because of his being, his personality, his talents, and his uniqueness. An admiration based only on the body cannot renew love and ensure its permanence.

In fact, there is great overlap and complexity between the affairs of the body on the one hand, and the affairs of the soul on the other. This means that sex cannot be understood in its purely physical dimension, because it is impossible to understand sex unless we first understand man. Man is not just a body, so we can say that sex is physical. Sex goes beyond the physical element, even if the media seeks to make it a hostage of the body or a purely physical act. Sex is not all entity and all personality. Sex is a very complex energy that we do not understand, and we cannot understand its meaning and role unless we understand humans.

– Making love

In this time, we have become so accustomed to the phrase “making love” or “let’s make love,” to the point that love has become, in the minds of many, just a practice, or just something that is made, as is the phrase above.

In fact, there is a lot of this statement that we can ponder more closely. There are also many lessons that can be learned and learned from. Indeed, there are many meanings that can be considered and explored as much as possible.

The aforementioned phrase: “let's make love” is so familiar that it has become meaningless, so to speak. Repetition is what makes it lose its meaning, and its mere repetition makes the one who pronounces it, and still is, a son of this time. Not repeating it is pure backwardness.

Love, in the concept of this time, is just a physical practice, and therefore it cannot be isolated from the body, because the practice needs the body to be called that, which brings us back to the previous topic, where we heard about some calling for sex to be associated with love.

The phrase “making love” means that love is made. However, the love industry, in our view, is an insult to love and sex alike. Love is lived and not created. Love is lived, but sex is practiced. Thus, the mind today sees sex as a matter of the body and a physical expression in its meaning, and there is no need for awareness and reason in order to achieve it. While love is only addressed at the core of consciousness, and it only occurs after effort and sacrifice.

The practice of love, which assumes the body, cannot be understood or accepted without the body, and therefore love has no value for many people of this time in the absence of the body. This statement prompts me to say that widowhood in this era may not last, may not last, because physical weakness may require association with a new party and a new team. Contemporary love is physical at its core, and sex and love go hand in hand, even though the reality of each of them does not call for such a connection.

In fact, I fear that insisting on sexual freedom is an invitation to disloyalty among widows and widowers.

After this, sex appears in this time. It's also exaggerated. In this sense, we have the right to conclude that only beautiful women are loved and dream boys, because the beloved is beautiful in the body. A person is only attracted to the beautiful.

In this time, the dialectic between the body and love seems intertwined with the idea of physical beauty, which makes us see today's girls exaggerating in makeup, adornment, and clothing. As if the beautiful is the one that attracts attention, or as if the attractive is also the one that attracts attention, and she alone is loved. The whole issue is an appearance in our time. Paying attention to one’s appearance, such as adornment, clothing, and grooming, are easy things to achieve, and it is enough to have money. Where does the money come from if it is not available? Thus, man today is only occupied with the external, but the internal (22) So it is postponed.

However, happiness is not built on appearance and its consequences, which means that contemporary marriages are fraught with risks, and that the family today is based on the palm of a demon. All this talk ultimately brings us to the conclusion that women who do not have a beautiful body and a beautiful face inevitably suffer under great psychological pressures that no one can enumerate and reveal their dimensions. This is confirmed by the fact that those who have a beautiful body and a beautiful face enjoy some joy and coquetry in terms of social relationships.

Since our time is the time of appearance, adornment, and finery, mothers in particular have begun to divorce their daughters, and have even allowed them to show off the charms of their bodies. This means that they are satisfied with the financial pressure that results from that, and the contradictions resulting from the school atmosphere, educational achievement, and home role models. All of this is because this farsha is inherent in the mother’s mind regarding the marriage plan. That is, it is as if the mother wants to say by her behavior that her daughter is ready to receive the groom. Building a marital home on a few grams of powder, changing hairstyles, etc., is what makes me see the marriages of the coming decades as more confused, turbulent, and problematic than the marriages of today or the marriages of yesterday. Thus, people's minds are known from people's practices. In other words, the issue, in short, seems to be all a matter of the body. In this lies the philosophy of all future marriages, because they are built on a physical choice, not on the basis of understanding, harmony, harmony, and the ability to tolerate the other in his uniqueness, in his negatives, upbringing, personality, and all his faults...

Therefore, anyone who thinks that physical matters lead to a successful marriage and a happy family is mistaken. Whoever thinks that love, this enchanting word that tickles everything in man today, is capable in itself of leading newlyweds to the shore of safety, is mistaken. Love in the teenage mind is based on the body, and the beloved body is the sexy body. Sex in our time is inherent to the body, and does not derive its justifications from its Creator, who issued a far-reaching and meaning-filled saying: “For in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God...” (Matthew). Sex is for this world, but that world has no need for sex.

However, the association of love with sex, or the association of love with the body, is a fragile philosophy if we reflect on the pages of daily life. The body itself, and through marital life in particular, is not the only tool for expressing love between spouses, especially since the dependence of love on the body and on the freshness of the body would cause love to die with the signs of old age, or even with the first signs of boredom between the spouses. Boredom is inevitably imminent. Usually, boredom begins after the first four seasons of marriage. Perhaps there are married people who had bad luck and found out about him shortly after marriage. Perhaps there are married couples who became bored shortly after their honeymoon. Others knew him during their honeymoon, and here is the problem.

Love cannot express itself in the body alone, because the body is incapable of making love perpetuate and remain. The absence of freshness means the absence of love, and with the absence of freshness, the flame of love is extinguished and the glow of instincts fades, as if the person is walking on the path of death. Thus we come to the following question: What is the meaning of love if we lose admiration for the beloved?

The absence of admiration for a life partner is the biggest wedge that drives the building of the marital home. This absence of admiration creates apathy and boredom, and therefore a love that is not born every day, dies every day. Sex itself may die if admiration dies.

The proverb, as you know, is Romeo's love for Juliet. What love is Romeo to Juliet? It is a young, playful love whose inner components I do not know. In my opinion, it is a liberating eagerness (23)An innocent eagerness exchanged between a young man of the age of flowers and a girl of the age of two winds. This Shakespearean love is a shallow love that is not suitable for the ships of hearts to anchor on its shore. It is a teenage love that we may not be destined to see after the lust has passed and the body has calmed down. It is easy to talk about love, but it is difficult to remain loving and loved if you look at the matter this way, because the issue requires internal conditions and not just an appearance that we are preoccupied with around the clock.

The problem with young men and women today is that they do not look to their families to learn the real lesson. They also do not ask the parents about the usefulness of the appearance and the reasons for the collapse of the marital home when it is built on sand. Young people today do not ask their families about the reasons for the failure and success of marriage, and this is a problem.

Now, notice from your daily life how a number of married couples, after a number of years that have passed since their marriage, have begun to eat outside the marital home, stay up late outside the marital home, and perhaps sleep outside the marital home. Isn't this evidence that the freshness of the body is temporary, and that so-called love is nothing? From here I see that the permanence of love is the same as the permanence of admiration.

Love, from a Christian perspective, does not remain or exist if God is absent from the life of the couple. Only God is the giver of permanence to our relationship, and He alone can make all things new. This teaches us that true freshness does not come from the body, and is not limited to the body. True freshness comes from above, not from the body.

In this particular era, we have begun to see many girls and women exaggerating in the use of powders and various forms of make-up. What is the meaning of this phenomenon? Why is there such a demand for body beautification? The answer to me is simple: the body is subject to aging and is subject to aging

Transformation and becoming, days are able to occur in it and it has wrinkles similar to the terrain of the earth. In my opinion, adopting powders is nothing but a sign of a person’s desire for freshness and youth and..., but this is impossible, as in the calendar of our days and our lives, a leaf falls every twenty-four hours. Who can prevent us from reaching the autumn of life? Who can stop the movement of life? In fact, I say this because I have become convinced that what we call love cannot be limited to giving of the body, as giving of the body is much easier than giving of the heart and being, and our time is the school of easy things.

Now, what do we say about sex as a language through which we express love in the world of old people? Where does sex remain for someone who has reached the age of eighty?

Here I would like to present a wonderful picture that I stood on while reading the wonderful book: “For the Life of the World” by Father Alexander Schmemann: Translated into Arabic by His Holiness Archimandrite Thomas Bitar, let us hear: “...But the writer of these lines once saw a warm yoke on an autumn afternoon, A poor, elderly man and woman were sitting on a bench in a public square in a poor Parisian suburb. Their hands were intertwined, enjoying, in silence, the fading light, the farewell autumn warmth. Everything was in silence. All the words between them have been said. All lust was exhausted. All the storms calmed down, all life was backwards. However, all life was now present in that stillness, in that light, in that warmth, in the silent solitude of hands. Everything seemed present, ready for eternity, ripe for joy. This, to me, is the vision of marriage, and the vision of its heavenly beauty.”

Is it possible that after this, love will die due to old age or aging? Is it possible that married life should be limited to the years of maturity and youth only?

If some insist on the necessity of physical freshness, we must be aware that what we require of the other group is not our right, as we also cannot maintain permanent freshness, and therefore the group to which we are bound by love and marriage cannot stipulate that we must maintain our freshness. If those who desire freshness insist on its necessity all the time, then the end will be miserable with the onset of old age! How miserable married people are! Do you see how, in this situation, love continues among the old and the elderly?

It is certain that old age will apply to sex and to every physical disorder, whim, or instinct. It is impossible for the body to maintain its freshness in order to be quenched by instincts and desires, as age and days can exhaust a person’s vitality and the strength of his body. But it is impossible to conclude from this that the death of love is imminent and certain simply because old age or weakness has taken hold of the sexual energy and vitality of the body. The question remains: How does love continue into old age?

The continuation of love, if it exists, among the sheikhs, depends on a number of things, the first of which is the mutual service that the husband shows to his wife, and the wife to her husband. Likewise, the life of a quiet company, and active participation in family affairs, in both their highs and lows, from caring for the children of the family, embracing them, and following up on their problems with kindness and gentleness and a word of love, to working to consolidate the foundations of the family with advice and sobriety, are things that work together in order to move the wheel of family life upward. And for the better. Likewise, the continuation of love among the elders is also based on the absorption of life experience and progress in piety and love of God.

From this we learn that the freshness of the body or the vitality of the body is not reliable forever (24). Love cannot be based on physical freshness, because it essentially transcends it and continues even after the body sagged and aged. Love can never be based on the body. Let us also hear this news:

One day I read about an incident that happened to a man working as a lumberjack in one of the huge forests of California. This man, while he was working one day on cutting down a large tree, the rotating saw bounced on him in a moment of inattention, and it sank into his gut a few centimeters before he staggered and fell to the ground. His colleagues rushed to him and carried him, half alive and dead, to a nearby hospital, covered in his own blood. The necessary first aid was given to him, and he was out of danger, but he had to stay in the hospital for about a month. After that, the doctors allowed him to leave because he had recovered, so he returned to his home and his family. The family was happy for his return, and his arrival to his family members was a source of joy and consolation. When the wife asked the treating doctor, during the review visit, about her husband’s health and condition more than a month after the incident, he told her that he had completely recovered, but that he would no longer be able to think about having more children. Immediately, the wife got up, cheering, and said: It is enough for me that my husband has returned to us, and he is now with us. After all this, do you notice how there is no connection between love and sex at all?!! Do you notice how love is called to remain even in old age or impotence?

In fact, sex cannot be a god over life and a deity in this life, as sex was not in the lives of beings for this purpose. Sex has a message, but this message, no matter how great it is, cannot make it an idol or a god.

Sex cannot be a master in this life, because the factor of time, the derivatives of life, familiarity and many worries, the lack of spiritual striving, the burdens of educational affairs, and the lack of a deep vision whose existence depends on many things and elements, are all important factors that will exhaust the power of The body and its freshness. Therefore, time is able to deplete the power of sex and love together, especially if it creeps into the entity, neglect, monotony, and slackness, along with heedlessness. However, sex remains an obsession and exaggeration in this time.

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(18) This time is preoccupied with appearances, and rarely thinks about the essence.

(19) The body, with its fear of temptations, in order not to be upset, becomes a friend of sin, and that is why the Holy Spirit forces it to die, because if it does not die, it will not overcome sin (Article 47 of Saint Isaac the Syrian, p. 177)

(20) Here the writer tends to be somewhat sarcastic because looking or seduction is not the justification for having sex

(21) Rape is a sign that sexual freedom is a disease.

(22) It is easy to get busy with the outside world whether you have money or not. However, the inner man does not grow with money, rather he needs many other things. This time seems to be only partially occupied with it.

(23) Libertine

(24) Despite physical freshness, the couple may fall victim to apathy if there is no mental harmony and harmony at the level of the entire personality. Likewise, the lack of firmness with oneself, in other words, the absence of jihad (a Christian expression), would destroy love, even if the wife is Miss World. Think about the people you see every day? What does your experience tell you? What do your eyes tell you? It is a shame and shame that our mind does not speak to us about these matters, especially in this time.