Stay in Touch

No matter what the challenges that confront us every day, our lips can still blow the horn of praise, our fingers can still play a melody of joy, our toes can keep tapping the song of encouragement, the heart can still swing to the song of the Spirit. We in the church are touchy-feely people. Let's stay that way.

When you want to reject an experience or an idea as ridiculous or silly, what do you say? Don't we often label it as "touchy-feely"? Gushy, emotional, illogical displays are dismissed as "touchy-feely." Partly this is because our dominant responses are products of a "non-contact culture" (North Americans, Northern Europeans, Asians). We are far more comfortable with wrapping our minds around an idea than with flinging our arms around a person.

In more physically demonstrative "contact cultures" (Arabs, Latin Americans, Southern Europeans), touch is as much a part of communication as are words. Backslapping, cheek kissing, bear hugging and hand holding are the grammatical rules of a contact-culture language. But for most of us in the United States, and especially within the sanctuaries of our faith communities, we are far too hung up on the "tact" in "tactile." Ours is a "hands-off" culture. A "Don't touch me" spirit pervades both the sacred and the secular spaces in our lives....