balm

One of my favorite parts of church involves nothing of particular overt significance. I don't know when the tradition began, or how; but I love that, when the congregation prays the Our Father, everyone holds hands.

I surmise that it began when the church focused on community in the late 60s. Whatever the cause, on the rare occasions when I find myself sitting in the pews, as opposed to standing solo leading the singing, I absolutely cannot wait for that one moment.

My whole life I have loved human contact. I grew up in a very physically affectionate family, and made physically affectionate friends in college. Whether it was linking arms with a comrade to skip along the Quad, squishing four girls onto a three-person couch to watch Eddie Izzard, or dancing around the dorm rooms in moments of joy, I always had friends to lend a quite literal hand.

Adulthood has brought its challenges, which I have loved in that persevering through them I have continued to grow up, and have witnessed a divine faithfulness directing my footsteps. The hardest part, for me, isn't paying the bills, or budgeting, or cleaning house, or coming home tired from work; it isn't even sitting alone in my living room clicking the remote to the next episode of Buffy. It's the lack of human contact.

I've made do, of course; one does. I have my delightful Simon to cuddle with, and have cultivated a little extra stamina between the times when I visit with my sister or my parents. I keep myself busy, and I don't often think about it. I'm never given more than I can handle, right? And on the whole I "handle" very well. Most days it doesn't feel like that big a deal; it's just life, and, for the most part, I very much like my life.

But I love that moment in church. I love feeling the pressure of fingertips on the back of my hand, the living heat of a human palm crossing my own. I love the individuality in people's grasps, and I love that one of the ways in which God's love is made manifest to us is through the unity of His children.

I doubt that salving touch-starved spirits was what the church had in mind in instilling this small ritual. But the weeks when I stand surrounded by other believers, even though most of them are still strangers, clasping the warmth of human hands, give me just a little more strength, and a little more joy. I keep the sensation imprinted on my skin and in my mind, like the chapstick in my pocket, to apply as needed to the drier days, to remind myself that I am a member of Christ's body, and that, since it gives me such comfort, I too can serve by reaching out -- again, literally -- to the people in need who cross my path, because, as U2 says so well, "to touch is to heal."

It's a beautiful thing.