It is a difficult thing to pay attention to our conversations, relationships and simply being in the presence of others. We rely so heavily on cliche, routines and posturing. From the opening moments of human interface these relational habits kick-in with the force of the most powerful addictions. What do I mean?
"Hi, how are you doing?"
"Fine!" A pause and tilt of the head sideways. "And how are YOU doing anyway?"
"Couldn't be better," he lies.
Fake smiles--yeah I've been caught in a few. I had a guy in one church that would give me back my Guy Smiley smile every time I posed it.
Why can't we live in the real world? Why can't we truly mean what we say, interface with sincerity and truly touch one another with authenticity? You need to be seen today. Has anyone looked at you? Has anyone studied your eyes and your face and really asked about you? You need to be heard today. Is anyone listening?
Would you touch someone this day by making a real conversation--by being honest when you are with them and looking them in their beautiful eyes and expressing some form of human contact? Would you listen to someone who needs to be heard.Oh God, please help us love each other!
Sometimes when people tell me I'm special, I'm tempted to think they just like being loved. They just think it's cool being seen, or heard, or spoken to in the present tense and moment... Funny idea, isn't it?
For more on this topic click here.
Showing posts with label connection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label connection. Show all posts
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Touch and the Art of Being Real
As we've been tossing about the concepts of "connecting" and "human touch" this week, another way of touching has emerged in my thinking. How is it that I touch, most often anyway? I mean, I am a lover. I love people...deeply. (Just can't help it! I think it has something to do with my Programmer:-).) And as I think of ways we touch one another, words come to mind. Yes, speech is another, and possibly most powerful means of impact.
I'm encouraged that this focus on physical touch has gotten so much attention here. But now, let me try and communicate about words as touch.
Usually when we speak with one another, we by necessity keep a certain spiritual distance. Our bodies or their sound-waves are in proximity, but we keep our souls (Greek--"Psuche"--English "psyche.") back at a comfortable distance. It takes a special boldness, not to mention time, to enter into soul-level conversations. But it seems to me that only in such conversations--where honesty reigns--is love able to happen. And truly, only in such conversations can soul (psychological) damage or repair be done. This is because it takes honesty to touch.
(I'd like to take time to relate the involvement of "spirit" here, perhaps later.)
We can do the "How are you?" -- "I'm fine!" conversations all day long, and never touch a soul. We can speak of weather or sports and never hurt or encourage a soul. For there is no need to reach with one soul to another in such conversations. And sadly, we too often become trained to live and converse on a banal level of "cliche."
But enter the arena of honesty--conversations where we tell a friend they have offended us, or have a character issue we believe needs confrontation--and you know there will be contact. And great hurt or great healing is possible. Because souls are super sensitive. They feel pain with the slightest "touch," and ecstasy as well. And change, or healing in this case, can only happen through such touch. How often do we risk such intimate interface?
And when we look in one-another's eyes and say a genuine "I love you"--and we mean it--and the hearer hears it, then we touch. Like a mother's gentle fingers brushing a child's back, comfort tingles it's way into some deep place, and CONTACT is made. Touch has happened. As a favorite author of mine says, a "psyche is stroked." (See Susan Howatch Anglican Series.)
Be real. Prayerfully make your words healing touches. And risk impacting the reality of another mortal's immortality.
Grace and peace to you.
I'm encouraged that this focus on physical touch has gotten so much attention here. But now, let me try and communicate about words as touch.
Usually when we speak with one another, we by necessity keep a certain spiritual distance. Our bodies or their sound-waves are in proximity, but we keep our souls (Greek--"Psuche"--English "psyche.") back at a comfortable distance. It takes a special boldness, not to mention time, to enter into soul-level conversations. But it seems to me that only in such conversations--where honesty reigns--is love able to happen. And truly, only in such conversations can soul (psychological) damage or repair be done. This is because it takes honesty to touch.
(I'd like to take time to relate the involvement of "spirit" here, perhaps later.)
We can do the "How are you?" -- "I'm fine!" conversations all day long, and never touch a soul. We can speak of weather or sports and never hurt or encourage a soul. For there is no need to reach with one soul to another in such conversations. And sadly, we too often become trained to live and converse on a banal level of "cliche."
But enter the arena of honesty--conversations where we tell a friend they have offended us, or have a character issue we believe needs confrontation--and you know there will be contact. And great hurt or great healing is possible. Because souls are super sensitive. They feel pain with the slightest "touch," and ecstasy as well. And change, or healing in this case, can only happen through such touch. How often do we risk such intimate interface?
And when we look in one-another's eyes and say a genuine "I love you"--and we mean it--and the hearer hears it, then we touch. Like a mother's gentle fingers brushing a child's back, comfort tingles it's way into some deep place, and CONTACT is made. Touch has happened. As a favorite author of mine says, a "psyche is stroked." (See Susan Howatch Anglican Series.)
Be real. Prayerfully make your words healing touches. And risk impacting the reality of another mortal's immortality.
Grace and peace to you.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Importance of Human Touch
I continue to meditate on the words I posted regarding Connection in my recent post of that title. You might want to read that along with this one.
I had a pastor friend named Howard many years ago. He once told a group of us that he wanted to buy his newspaper from a girl at the check-out lane. (Mostly women worked the check-out lanes at our local grocery.) We asked him why? He said, I started buying my paper from the metal box on the street. Then one day I was in near the store and went in for my paper. When I gave the woman a dollar, she returned the change and her fingers touched my palm. I knew I'd never buy a paper from the metal box again."
Now Howard was a happily married man. There was absolutely zero sexual overtone in what he said to us that day. He was introducing a devotional thought about how Jesus' touch was so key to his healing ministry.
Today, medical doctors speak of the same. That human touch is healing...vitally so. Babies must have human touch to thrive. Children find human touch natural--hugging, holding your hand, climbing into your lap and kissing a loved-one's cheek. Teens however, are forced to drop this habit in our society. (I wonder if we were more intimate in our non-sexual world, would there be less unhealthy sexual craving?) One of the articles below speaks of this.
I was told when entering the ministry that I should never hug a person in church. I break the rule with regularity. I know there are those uncomfortable with hugs, but there are others who know how to hug in a caring/non-sexual way. And this touch is so healing. There is an 87 year old saint in our congregation who won't let a Sunday pass without hugging me, and telling me she prays for me. She says she needs the hug.
Henri Nouwen speaks of a young mentally handicapped girl who asked for a blessing during one of his workshops. He gave her a canned sign of the cross, and said a quick blessing. She said, "No, I want a real blessing." He was moved to wrap her in the folds of his outer priestly robe and tell her how wonderful she was, how important to God and himself. Then he observed her spiritual radiance and renewed strength.
Now here is a disclaimer. I do not know the authors of the articles listed below, nor their affiliations. However, they seem to do a nice job of expressing the need for human touch. They seem to emphasize strong ethical/moral borders when it comes to touching. But they do suggest the vital need we humans have to be touched.
This link is to an article about the importance of touch for healing of our children. It also addresses briefly the taboos that are involved come adolescence.
Here is a blog post with more information about the necessity of human touch.
Well, I hope I haven't offended anyone. But in a world of cyber-connecting, I felt the need to emphasize the necessity of true connecting.
May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. And may he find someone to touch you with his grace.
David
I had a pastor friend named Howard many years ago. He once told a group of us that he wanted to buy his newspaper from a girl at the check-out lane. (Mostly women worked the check-out lanes at our local grocery.) We asked him why? He said, I started buying my paper from the metal box on the street. Then one day I was in near the store and went in for my paper. When I gave the woman a dollar, she returned the change and her fingers touched my palm. I knew I'd never buy a paper from the metal box again."
Now Howard was a happily married man. There was absolutely zero sexual overtone in what he said to us that day. He was introducing a devotional thought about how Jesus' touch was so key to his healing ministry.
Today, medical doctors speak of the same. That human touch is healing...vitally so. Babies must have human touch to thrive. Children find human touch natural--hugging, holding your hand, climbing into your lap and kissing a loved-one's cheek. Teens however, are forced to drop this habit in our society. (I wonder if we were more intimate in our non-sexual world, would there be less unhealthy sexual craving?) One of the articles below speaks of this.
I was told when entering the ministry that I should never hug a person in church. I break the rule with regularity. I know there are those uncomfortable with hugs, but there are others who know how to hug in a caring/non-sexual way. And this touch is so healing. There is an 87 year old saint in our congregation who won't let a Sunday pass without hugging me, and telling me she prays for me. She says she needs the hug.
Henri Nouwen speaks of a young mentally handicapped girl who asked for a blessing during one of his workshops. He gave her a canned sign of the cross, and said a quick blessing. She said, "No, I want a real blessing." He was moved to wrap her in the folds of his outer priestly robe and tell her how wonderful she was, how important to God and himself. Then he observed her spiritual radiance and renewed strength.
Now here is a disclaimer. I do not know the authors of the articles listed below, nor their affiliations. However, they seem to do a nice job of expressing the need for human touch. They seem to emphasize strong ethical/moral borders when it comes to touching. But they do suggest the vital need we humans have to be touched.
This link is to an article about the importance of touch for healing of our children. It also addresses briefly the taboos that are involved come adolescence.
Here is a blog post with more information about the necessity of human touch.
Well, I hope I haven't offended anyone. But in a world of cyber-connecting, I felt the need to emphasize the necessity of true connecting.
May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. And may he find someone to touch you with his grace.
David
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Connecting
It's Tuesday night. This is the evening that my wife stays up north with my mother, between her Tuesday and Wednesday of work there. This is the night my daughter and her husband cook for me, and we enjoy some time together. And this is the night that, after hugs and good-byes, I am home alone.
After a Sunday of connecting and loving, I must be pretty intentional about down time. I need time to love and be loved by the Author of Love. I need to be recharged. But...
Isn't there just something addicting about connecting? We need human connections. Listen to the words I received in a recent email from an acquaintance:
As I took communion, I prayed, as always, that God's grace would cover the sins in my life. I sat back down, on the aisle, and wished that God could speak to me somehow and let me know he had not given up on me. Then, it happened. A tall, elderly lady in a turquoise dress walked down the aisle after taking communion. As far as I know, I have never seen her, nor she me. We did not make significant, if any, eye contact as she began to pass by me. As she passed me, however, she reached out her hand and laid it on my shoulder for a moment, in a gesture of tenderness and comfort, it seemed to me. I felt it was God's hand using her hand to tell me He is still there, loving me, pursuing me, waiting for me. It's one of those things that sounds so small, maybe, in the retelling, but I left church feeling that God had spoken to me personally, through the touch of that lady's hand.
Beautiful. The person and presence of Jesus offered through the touch of one of his own...who was sensitive enough to understand who needed Love's touch.
I can't get Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel's painting out of my mind right now...God's finger reaching and Adam's reaching and....CONTACT. I think I'll drop by facebook to see if there are any messages for me...
Where can you offer connection?
After a Sunday of connecting and loving, I must be pretty intentional about down time. I need time to love and be loved by the Author of Love. I need to be recharged. But...
Isn't there just something addicting about connecting? We need human connections. Listen to the words I received in a recent email from an acquaintance:
As I took communion, I prayed, as always, that God's grace would cover the sins in my life. I sat back down, on the aisle, and wished that God could speak to me somehow and let me know he had not given up on me. Then, it happened. A tall, elderly lady in a turquoise dress walked down the aisle after taking communion. As far as I know, I have never seen her, nor she me. We did not make significant, if any, eye contact as she began to pass by me. As she passed me, however, she reached out her hand and laid it on my shoulder for a moment, in a gesture of tenderness and comfort, it seemed to me. I felt it was God's hand using her hand to tell me He is still there, loving me, pursuing me, waiting for me. It's one of those things that sounds so small, maybe, in the retelling, but I left church feeling that God had spoken to me personally, through the touch of that lady's hand.
Beautiful. The person and presence of Jesus offered through the touch of one of his own...who was sensitive enough to understand who needed Love's touch.
I can't get Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel's painting out of my mind right now...God's finger reaching and Adam's reaching and....CONTACT. I think I'll drop by facebook to see if there are any messages for me...
Where can you offer connection?
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