A Kiss On The Lips

A Kiss on the Lips

An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.

Proverbs 24:26, NIV

At a church near our home in Seattle, a Japanese couple, recently arrived in the States, were getting married. Despite their limited exposure to Western customs, their American-style wedding went well. But when the minister invited the couple to kiss, nothing happened. Surprised, the minister turned to the bride and said, “How about a little kiss?” Not wanting to offend, she shyly leaned forward and kissed the minister!

She’s not the first bride to be confused by kissing. A kiss can mean different things at different times—good morning, good-bye, I missed you, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m in the mood, and so on. But perhaps the sweetest of all kisses is the good night kiss that says I’m going to be missing you even while I sleep. Remember when you were dating each other how difficult it was to say good night after a date? You’d say good night countless times, with just as many kisses.

Poets and lyricists have done their best to capture the magic and mystery of a kiss. Here’s how Edmund Vance Cooke put it:

Kisses kept are wasted;

Love is to be tasted.

There are some you love, I know;

Be not loath to tell them so.

Lips go dry and eyes grow wet

Waiting to be warmly met.

Keep them not in waiting yet;

Kisses kept are wasted.

Not bad. But we think a brief line from the book of Proverbs says it best: “An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.” Solomon, in all his wisdom, equated a kiss on the lips to an honest answer. When we are kissing our spouse on the lips, especially to say good night, we are conveying our honest feelings. It’s a kind of lover’s shorthand to the questions we rarely articulate but deeply feel: Do you still love me, in spite of all the mistakes I make? Do you still want to be with me when I burn the toast, leave my clothes on the floor, and all the rest? A kiss on the lips is a way of honestly answering in the affirmative these unspoken questions.

As you’re edging toward this Valentine’s season, give kissing some special consideration. Don’t take it for granted. “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips,” says poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. So don’t kiss flippantly. Give one another a really good kiss and then enjoy the intimacy of a couple whose love is as honest as their hearts.

How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.

—Victor Hugo