A Touchy Subject

I was social distancing before social distancing was cool.

Okay, so it’s not really cool now, just necessary, but my point is that I am a serial non-toucher. I have been known to slip out of Wednesday night prayer meetings on pretext of needing to go to the bathroom if the pastor asked us to pair up--men with men and women with women--to pray. I am not a fan of shaking hands. If a stranger holds up a hand for a high five, I will leave him hanging.

The funny thing, though, is that I don’t mind hugs. I think in my mind, a hug is genuine--two arms and a body in contrast with a casually sweaty hand. A hug is more intimate and says that you actually like the person, instead of just being physical contact mandated by societal norms, and once we are actually friends, I have less problem with grabbing a hand, holding an arm, nudging shoulders while we share a hymnal. For me, acceptable touch grows naturally out of a real relationship. But my discomfort with casual touch leaves people out, because it discounts their need to be seen and acknowledged.

Lore Ferguson Wilbert’s book Handle With Care addresses the issues we have with touch. She suggests that we need kind and loving touch from each other, especially in the church, and that the arbitrary rules we have added to touch (don’t even pat the shoulder of another man’s wife, no lunches with people of the opposite gender, no kissing until marriage, etc.) have actually harmed us. In this book, Ms. Wilbert draws lines of connection between the ways Jesus related to and touched people in his time on earth and how we should be touching each other in the family of God.

Just typing those words makes me feel uncomfortable, because of the stigma we have attached to touch--as Ms. Wilbert says, imbuing every kind of touch with a sexual meaning, which cheapens and changes the meaning and makes innocent and kind touch feel gross. And obviously there is a real problem with touch, even in the church--abuse has been rampant, and few people seem to have good ideas on how to even talk about appropriate touch, much less guide people on these issues.

But this is probably why we need to join the discussion that this book begins. We need to be able to talk about healthy touch before we can truly change our approach to it. When I reread what I wrote above about my own attitude toward touch, it is a little concerning. What’s wrong with a high five? Am I really so squeamish that I can’t pray with my Christian sisters? Holding hands to pray is not too much to ask, especially when I know it helps my friend feel I see her.

When I think about the kind of touch I love--a hug at the end of a long day, my husband’s hand slipped into mine on a walk, my daughter sucking her thumb and wrapping her other hand in my hair--I remember that healthy touch can be a beautiful, vulnerable way to be with people, and to let them know that you care and are accessible to them, and all people really do need this kind of touch from someone. That means even from me.

I don’t have all the answers here. This is a nuanced issue without easy answers, but I really want to be a part of those conversations examining the ways we handle each other's hearts through our hands.