Yes, the power of touch is huge. Who will you touch today in some way? Do we allow God to touch us? Are we open to God and in periods of quietness and stillness do we feel touched by God? Are we set free by the God whom we love and who loves us without measure / action in its different usages.
The Pool by H. D.
Are you alive? I touch you. You quiver like a sea-fish. I cover you with my net. What are you—banded one?
Touch can come in so many different ways from music which touches our very souls, words which reduce us to tears of pain or joy. For me touch in its broadest sense includes all other sense and involves them it is about seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling in a way that ordinarily we don't accept.
It can be used sensually and evocatively, it can be a way of getting in with your feelings, it can be a way of showing support when you touch someone on the shoulder or a pat on the head to a child. It can mean to physically grab someone or it can be a delicate thing, like the touch of the breeze or a butterfly wings upon your skin. It can be a human thing as in holding hands or holding someone back, or the touch of God upon your life. or things temporal, sun shining on your face, rain upon your head, a shiver when "someone walks on your grave" or the chill of a winter's day. It can be the touch of silk or rough wool on your body. Some folk are very touchy feely, hugs and kisses and that for some is comfortable, for others the exact opposite. We need to be aware of what people are happy with.
Old Furniture Thomas Hardy
I know not how it may be with others Who sit amid relics of householdry That date from the days of their mothers’ mothers. But well I know how it is with me Continually.
I see the hands of the generations That owned each shiny familiar thing In play on its knobs and indentations, And with its ancient fashioning Still dallying:
Hands behind hands, growing paler and paler, As in a mirror a candle-flame Shows images of itself, each frailer As it recedes, though the eye may frame Its shape the same.
On the clock’s dull dial a foggy finger, Moving to set the minutes right With tentative touches that lift and linger In the wont of a moth on a moth on a summer night, Creeps to my sight.
On this old viol, too, fingers are dancing – As whilom – just over the strings by the nut, The tip of a bow receding, advancing In airy quivers, as if it would cut The plaintive gut.
And I see a face by that box for tinder, Glowing forth in fits from the dark, And fading again, as the linten cinder Kindles to red at the flinty spark, Or goes out stark.
Well, well. It is best to be up and doing, The world has no use for one today Who eyes things thus – no aim pursuing! He should not continue in this stay, But sink away.
We have missed touching in Church - the touch of the Body of Christ being placed on our outstretched hand, the touch in a blessing, the touch in sharing The Peace or touching others as we greet and then depart. The touch on the furniture, the ancient stones which shout their stories, the liturgy books, the money going into the offertory plate. Then there is the touch of sexual acts committed in church or other places - of being made to feel dirty and unworthy, touched and defiled - and even worse when it is committed by one of the church.
Our Lord knew the power of touching, either by him touching others or indeed being touched himself. Think about how Jesus healed - by touching the person often maybe by the hand, touching ears and eyes, and how Jesus helped the struggling Peter by offering his hand of support. Then what about those who touched Jesus, the woman with a hemorrhage who just touched Jesus' robes, Thomas who Jesus allowed to touch his wounds, Jesus touched by the waters of baptism, Mary Magdalene and so on. The touch which conveyed power and peace, liberation and freedom, health and wholeness.
Yes, the power of touch is huge. Who will you touch today in some way? Do we allow God to touch us? Are we open to God and in periods of quietness and stillness do we feel touched by God? Are we set free by the God whom we love and who loves us without measure?
Prayer
Jesus (inhale)
Help me (exhale)
(Inhale)
Open your heart to God
Heavenly Father, Lord, Almighty God ( or whatever you want to address God with)
Breath out - your request/feeling
Let God touch you
I need you.
AMEN