Something does not have to be adorable in order to be lovable. All living beings have value, even for themselves, worthy of our respect. But some things we naturally find adorable, and they help draw us into a life of wider respect. The cuteness of a child, the sweetness of a pet, the charm of a doll, or the loveliness of a flower can awaken in us tenderness and care. These experiences do not replace the deeper truth that all creatures matter, but they can serve as doorways—small, luminous openings—into the larger recognition of intrinsic worth.
There are many forms of adorability: preciousness, darlingness, cuteness, loveliness, and sweetness, for example. We can experience them in children and pets, and, when children, in dolls and stuffed animals. Often we want to squeeze them, hug them, or pet them in loving ways.
The Filipinos have a word for this that has recently been added to the Oxford English Dictionary: gigil. It is an intense feeling caused by eagerness, or the pleasure, of seeing someone or something cute or adorable.
The experience of gigil is not merely sentimental. It tells us that there is something adorable in life, no matter how much suffering surrounds us. And reminds open and relational theologians, including process theologians, that the amipotent Spirit of God at work in the world is found, among other places, in the simple, profound impulse to hug the adorable.
The hugging or petting that flows from it can be understood as a kind of sacrament—nourishing in its own way, as holy communion is nourishing. Indeed, each instance of gigil can be a moment of holy communion, a scrap of light in a too-often dark world. And as we pray for our enemies as well as our friends, our prayer can be: “I wish you lots of gigil.”
There are many forms of adorability: preciousness, darlingness, cuteness, loveliness, and sweetness, for example. We can experience them in children and pets, and, when children, in dolls and stuffed animals. Often we want to squeeze them, hug them, or pet them in loving ways.
The Filipinos have a word for this that has recently been added to the Oxford English Dictionary: gigil. It is an intense feeling caused by eagerness, or the pleasure, of seeing someone or something cute or adorable.
The experience of gigil is not merely sentimental. It tells us that there is something adorable in life, no matter how much suffering surrounds us. And reminds open and relational theologians, including process theologians, that the amipotent Spirit of God at work in the world is found, among other places, in the simple, profound impulse to hug the adorable.
The hugging or petting that flows from it can be understood as a kind of sacrament—nourishing in its own way, as holy communion is nourishing. Indeed, each instance of gigil can be a moment of holy communion, a scrap of light in a too-often dark world. And as we pray for our enemies as well as our friends, our prayer can be: “I wish you lots of gigil.”
Scraps of Light
I have known young mothers and fathers—and perhaps you have as well—who are so moved by the cuteness, the adorability, the lovableness, of their infant children that they feel an almost irresistible urge to squeeze them, lovingly, again and again and again.
I have known pet lovers who feel the same way about their dogs, wanting to pet them over and over. They can’t not pet. Sometimes they even do nose kisses with them. They need to touch their companions.
I have known children who feel the same way about their stuffed animals, hugging them all night long and throughout the day. They, too, need to touch.
I have known older people, in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, who feel the same way about their baby dolls. Their dolls are their companions.
They all feel the impulse to squeeze, to hold, to touch—moved by adorability.
It would be easy, from a more cynical mindset, to dismiss this impulse as sentimental, short-sighted, or blind to all the suffering in the world. It is possible to feel that, given the suffering, they haven’t the right to be so happy. I know people who think this way.
But a better response, I believe, is to appreciate how fortunate they are, to take delight in their delight, and to glimpse something of God in their relationship with the objects of their gigil.
I have known pet lovers who feel the same way about their dogs, wanting to pet them over and over. They can’t not pet. Sometimes they even do nose kisses with them. They need to touch their companions.
I have known children who feel the same way about their stuffed animals, hugging them all night long and throughout the day. They, too, need to touch.
I have known older people, in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, who feel the same way about their baby dolls. Their dolls are their companions.
They all feel the impulse to squeeze, to hold, to touch—moved by adorability.
It would be easy, from a more cynical mindset, to dismiss this impulse as sentimental, short-sighted, or blind to all the suffering in the world. It is possible to feel that, given the suffering, they haven’t the right to be so happy. I know people who think this way.
But a better response, I believe, is to appreciate how fortunate they are, to take delight in their delight, and to glimpse something of God in their relationship with the objects of their gigil.
Gigil
The Oxford English Dictionary has recently added (2025) a new word to its offerings: gigil. It comes from the Filipino language Tagalog and means:
The Oxford English Dictionary has recently added (2025) a new word to its offerings: gigil. It comes from the Filipino language Tagalog and means:
“an intense feeling caused by anger, eagerness, or the pleasure of seeing someone or something cute or adorable, typically physically manifested by the tight clenching of hands, gritting of the teeth, trembling of the body, or the pinching or squeezing of the person or thing causing this emotion.”
It is important to recognize that gigil can also name the intense feeling caused by anger—as when you might want to pinch someone, or even slap them into sanity when they have done something foolish or harmful. And of course, they might feel the same toward you!
But here I focus on the intense feeling that arises from eagerness or the pleasure of seeing something cute or adorable. Call this healthy gigiling. The word can be used as a noun or as an adjective, as in:
But here I focus on the intense feeling that arises from eagerness or the pleasure of seeing something cute or adorable. Call this healthy gigiling. The word can be used as a noun or as an adjective, as in:
- “Her gigil was so strong she couldn’t stop herself from hugging the puppy.”
- “He gave a gigil squeeze when he saw his baby niece.”
- "When he hugged his daughter, he was as gigil as I'd ever seen him."
Gigiling Human and Divine
At present, there is no verb form of gigil. But we in the open and relational (process) community might want to coin one: “to gigil”—to be overtaken by an intensity of attraction so strong that it issues in a bodily impulse to squeeze, clutch, or otherwise affirm contact. This is what is happening in the minds and hearts of the young mothers and fathers and the others. The verb to gigil would be transitive and intransitive: something we do and something that happens to us.
In this sense, to gigil would combine many aspects of process philosophy: relationality, the subjective aim at intensity of feeling, the withness of the body, and the desire for satisfying immediacy in the moment. It also includes experience in the mode of causal efficacy—being emotionally and physically affected by another. We can be gigeled by another: a baby, a dog, a doll, or a stuffed animal.
In such moments, the other is not merely a passive object but an active lure for feeling, impressing itself upon us with such force that it spills over into bodily impulse. To be gigiled, then, is to be emotionally and physically claimed by another, caught up in the play of affection and intensity that Whitehead understands as central to the very structure of experience.
The moments of being gigiled have a kind of metaphysical significance. They show us that we are together with the world, not only in times of shared suffering—which is all too obvious—but also in shared gigiling. And we can experience this shared gigiling not only when we ourselves are the gigilers, but when we see others in the midst of their gigiling: when, for example, we watch young parents playing on the floor with their children, endlessly kissing their cheeks and feet; when we see grandparents delighting in the presence of a newborn; when we notice friends laughing with unrestrained joy at a beloved pet; or even when we witness strangers in a crowd moved by the same sudden wave of delight.
These scenes remind us that gigiling is not only personal but communal—a disclosure of how deeply relational our lives are, and how the search for intensity, tenderness, and play belongs to the very fabric of existence. We partake of the joy of gigiling from others, and their gigiling becomes our own.
It is said that God does not have a body. God has no hands to squeeze, to touch, to pet. But we have those hands, and we are, as it were, the very hands of God. This means that when we are moved by the adorability of what is eminently lovable in our world, we are adding something to God's life. We are helping God gigil.
And surely the lure of God in the world, present within each and all, is to let go of our seriousness at times and fall into whatever gigiling is available to us. It may not be an infant, a pet, a stuffed animal, or a doll. It may instead be the radiant bloom of a flower, the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind, the laughter of a friend, the warmth of a shared meal, or even the silly delight of a joke well-timed. Wherever tenderness breaks through, wherever delight insists on being felt, there is gigiling—and there, too, is God.
If we are able, it is good to respond to what gigils us by touching it, with our hearts and imaginations. In process theology, these, too, can be ways of touching their loveliness. We respond to gigiling with love and with play. In that gigiling we add to the very life of God and, just as importantly, the life of the world. What the world needs now is gigiling, sweet gigiling.
In this sense, to gigil would combine many aspects of process philosophy: relationality, the subjective aim at intensity of feeling, the withness of the body, and the desire for satisfying immediacy in the moment. It also includes experience in the mode of causal efficacy—being emotionally and physically affected by another. We can be gigeled by another: a baby, a dog, a doll, or a stuffed animal.
In such moments, the other is not merely a passive object but an active lure for feeling, impressing itself upon us with such force that it spills over into bodily impulse. To be gigiled, then, is to be emotionally and physically claimed by another, caught up in the play of affection and intensity that Whitehead understands as central to the very structure of experience.
The moments of being gigiled have a kind of metaphysical significance. They show us that we are together with the world, not only in times of shared suffering—which is all too obvious—but also in shared gigiling. And we can experience this shared gigiling not only when we ourselves are the gigilers, but when we see others in the midst of their gigiling: when, for example, we watch young parents playing on the floor with their children, endlessly kissing their cheeks and feet; when we see grandparents delighting in the presence of a newborn; when we notice friends laughing with unrestrained joy at a beloved pet; or even when we witness strangers in a crowd moved by the same sudden wave of delight.
These scenes remind us that gigiling is not only personal but communal—a disclosure of how deeply relational our lives are, and how the search for intensity, tenderness, and play belongs to the very fabric of existence. We partake of the joy of gigiling from others, and their gigiling becomes our own.
It is said that God does not have a body. God has no hands to squeeze, to touch, to pet. But we have those hands, and we are, as it were, the very hands of God. This means that when we are moved by the adorability of what is eminently lovable in our world, we are adding something to God's life. We are helping God gigil.
And surely the lure of God in the world, present within each and all, is to let go of our seriousness at times and fall into whatever gigiling is available to us. It may not be an infant, a pet, a stuffed animal, or a doll. It may instead be the radiant bloom of a flower, the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind, the laughter of a friend, the warmth of a shared meal, or even the silly delight of a joke well-timed. Wherever tenderness breaks through, wherever delight insists on being felt, there is gigiling—and there, too, is God.
If we are able, it is good to respond to what gigils us by touching it, with our hearts and imaginations. In process theology, these, too, can be ways of touching their loveliness. We respond to gigiling with love and with play. In that gigiling we add to the very life of God and, just as importantly, the life of the world. What the world needs now is gigiling, sweet gigiling.
Collecting Light by Deborah Cooper
I see the way the chickadees
take turns at the feeder.
I watch a neighbor take
her husband’s hand.
I see the way the sun will find
the only interruption
in dark clouds
to toss this amber light
across the pines.
I see a row of cars
stop on the road
until the orange cat
has safely crossed,
then take off slowly, should
she change her mind.
I watch the way my brother
lifts our mother from
the wheelchair
to the car,
the shawl he lays
across her lap.
I save up every scrap
of light,
because I know that it will take
each tiny consolation
every day
to mend the world.