For I hold you by your right hand—I, the Lord your God. And I say to you, “Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.” [Isaiah 41:13 (NLT)]
The stress from a flurry of blood tests and doctor’s appointments finally got to me in the OR while a doctor took several tissue samples from one of my organs! Despite the “happy juice” coursing through my veins meant to relax me, tears appeared. When a nurse silently took my hand in hers, I immediately calmed. Touch is the language of compassion and scientists found that even a simple hug or the holding of hands can lower one’s blood pressure and heart rate in stressful situations. I suppose that’s why our dentist’s assistant always gently touches a patient’s arm when the doctor is giving an injection. Gentle touch causes a decrease in the stress “fight or flight” hormone cortisol and an increase in the love “tend and befriend” hormone oxytocin.
We were at a funeral on another stress-filled day when the priest asked the congregation to join hands for every prayer. While holding hands during prayer wouldn’t be unusual in a small group or in many evangelical Protestant churches, apparently, it is in Roman Catholic ones (especially when done during every prayer). Being a rather touchy-feely Protestant, I enjoyed the hand holding and the feeling of solidarity in prayer that came with it. The priest, however, asked us to do more than simply one hold another’s hands. He asked us to become ”fully aware of the soul you are touching,” before joining in prayer.
After my husband took my hand in his, I took the hand of the woman beside me without even looking at her. I didn’t know her and wouldn’t see her again. But, recalling the priest’s direction to be “fully aware of the soul “ I was touching, I took a good look at her. From her rosary, I knew we don’t attend the same church, but I knew we worshipped the same God and were there for the same reason—to celebrate the life of the man whose body lay in a casket near the altar. As I became more aware of the soul I was touching, my thoughts turned from my own personal sorrow to the sorrow shared by all who were present in the sanctuary. We were one community, united in our thanksgiving for the man we mourned, in our intercessions for his family, in our love for God, and in our belief in the resurrected Christ and the life everlasting.
Holding hands during prayer seemed to benefit us physically, psychologically, and spiritually that day. Nevertheless, I appreciate that some people are uncomfortable with such intimacy during prayer and find doing it during worship an unwelcome innovation. Whether or not we touch one another during prayer is not as important as being fully aware of one another—not just the people with whom we pray, but all with whom we interact—our fellow travelers through this troubled world. Like us, they struggle to navigate the challenges, sorrow, and pain in their paths. Are we fully aware of the souls we encounter? Do we really see and hear them or are they just a blur of humanity? Could there be some way we can make their journey easier? Sometimes, we find that answer in a smile, a kind word, or, like that nurse, a simple touch. We don’t need to be spiritually gifted with healing for our touch to be a source of healing for a troubled soul, especially when accompanied by a prayer (even a silent one).
Lord, teach us to be fully aware of the souls we encounter each day. Let our words be kind, our actions helpful, and our touch gentle and supportive.
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. [Henri Nouwen]
Pastor Sandi always closes the service with Numbers 6:24-26. With this blessing, she’s continuing a tradition that is more than 3,000 years old. Intended as a blessing for the people, the Lord gave those words to Moses for Aaron to pass on to his sons and successive Temple priests. In 1979, that ancient blessing was found on two tiny silver scrolls in a burial cave near Jerusalem. Known as the Ketef Hinnom scrolls, they contain verses from Deuteronomy 7 and Numbers 6 and date to around 600 BC (making them the oldest known text of the Bible)!
Back in 2015, after their Washington, D.C., home was invaded, a family of three and their housekeeper were held hostage and tortured for nineteen hours before being brutally murdered and their house set on fire. During the family’s incomprehensible ordeal, their captor had a pizza delivered and calmly ate it. Ultimately, it was DNA left on a piece of that pizza that led police to the killer. While discovering his identity was an astounding piece of detective work, what most astonished me is that, while holding four people hostage—people likely crying in pain and pleading desperately for their lives—someone could calmly eat a pizza! How could anyone have an appetite while committing such an atrocious and cruel crime? Yet, Daron Wint did! Convicted of 20 counts of kidnapping, extortion, and murder, he was sentenced to four life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.
I still go online to read the newspaper from what was our hometown for over fifty years. Last week, it was filled with news about the events of Fiesta Days. With its Car Show, Big Wheel Race, Duck Derby, Beach Bash, Street Fair, Music Fest, Art Show, Parade, Fireworks, and Carnival (complete with rides and funnel cakes), the festival is one of summer’s highlights.
Several “Nancy” comics written and drawn by Guy Gilchrist have inspired my writing. Curious about the cartoonist, I was not surprised to learn that he is a Christian; that was not always true. As a boy, he was poor, lonely, abused, and searching for someone and something in which to believe. Missing a dad, he found a father figure in an unlikely place—television—and in a remarkable person—a radio, television and movie star by the name of Roy Rogers. When the young cartoonist was unsure how to behave, he’d look to the singing cowboy and ask himself, “What would Roy do?” He knew his cowboy hero always took the right course of action. Although Rogers was publicly vocal about his faith, Gilchrist didn’t know his hero was a Christ follower until many years later.
My summer beach novel began with a man having a heart attack on a commuter train. For the next several pages, I was privy to the thoughts of his fellow passengers who were annoyed by the train’s unscheduled stop for medical aid. Because they’d be delayed, they saw the man’s collapse as a tremendous inconvenience to them. As passengers disembarked to find another way into the city, their thoughts were not of the dying man and his wife but of themselves and how they’d been inconvenienced.
