That desperate drive of the-obnoxious-touchable-cat.
[ . . . an excerpt from an e-mail to my Muslim friend at the Unitarian-Universalist church, sharing my experience at visiting another UU congregation.]
The Horizon UU Church has the same custom as the First Jefferson UU Church. It was never done this way back in Maryland or the New England UU churches that I have attended. I guess people in that region of the country are simply more prudish. And that is the tradition of the holding of hands at the time of the benediction.
I will admit, I was somewhat startled at that, on that first Sunday I/we were at First Jeff. For there is such a taboo in western culture about “touching.”
Strangers simply recoil at touching another.
When PG (the manager I worked with at Sodexho in Gaithersburg, MD and who is now in the US Army in Kuwait City) and I would walk around the little lake next to our office building after lunch (it was a ¾ mile circle, about 20 minutes), and commiserate about the horrible state of US politics and stuff, sometimes our hands would bump together, and without exception, he would apologize like it was offensive to me or something. He would say that he knew that men in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries would hold hands, that it was culturally acceptable, but he recognized that it was more or less abhorrent in our culture here. I would never comment on that. Just let it pass.
But there is something life-giving about touching.
The newborn infant, lacking in the experience of being touched, will succumb to the failure-to-thrive syndrome. Touching is so crucial for fulfilled life. Look at the animals around us. There are two cats living in our house. They simply demand to be touched. There are in your face, to the point of being obnoxious, insisting on being touched. Look at the dog who scrambles under your feet, demanding to be touched. Look at the sea lions basking on the bank . . . one mass of touching. Look at the baby penguins in the movie “March of the Penguins,” how they are touched. Look at the young hetero-lovers walking in the park, how they touch. Look at the two elderly lesbian residents in a nursing home, how they touch. Look at the two, young, gay studs, how they touch.
And so the UU Churches in this area incorporate “touching” in their benediction ritual. For some it will be a perfunctory touch. An obligation. A moment of prolonged endurance. A gritting-of-the-teeth-to-get-this-over-with-experience and let me return to my sterile cocoon of prudish isolationism. For those who are in love, it is an intimate shared communication of awesome experience, culminated with a tender squeeze at the final “Amen.” For others, it is a recognition that though they feel as untouchable as a leper, someone is still willing to touch them. For still others, it is a validation that they really are a part of the human family.
Oh, that the churches of my youth would have condoned “touching” in the benediction ceremony. Oh, how I would and did scheme to sit next to the boy I was so infatuated with. And if the holding of his hand were a part of the benediction ritual, I would have benedicted the whole service from introit to end.
But alas, touching was abhorrent. So abhorrent.
Ayman, I remember that moment of a shared touch on that Sunday we first met. You had been seated on my right side. We were standing for the benediction. Directed to hold our neighbor’s hand. I sort of freaked out. For I had not touched another’s hand in well over two years other than the perfunctory handshake that is typically void of meaning.
But we touched. A warm, firm, responsive touch.
Like the infant that needs to be touched to survive, that brief moment of touch was an infusion of survivability.
At that final “Amen,” I squeezed. Simply could not help it. That desperate drive of the-obnoxious-touchable-cat. And the shared squeeze was felt in return.
I am not sure if I am completely comfortable with that UU tradition here in Texas . . . so culturally steeped in the abhorrence of touching I am.
It is not that I find touching abhorrent.
It is I am so fearful of touching.
But I certainly recognize the emotional and therapeutic fulfilling that it can bring to the members of a congregation. In time I will get “used” to it. And getting “used” to it might rob it of its powerful impact.
Must wait and see.
Perhaps humans might evolve yet, to the point of being an in-your-face-obnoxious-cat in the demand and fulfillment and acceptability of touching and being touched.
The Refectory Manager
The Horizon UU Church has the same custom as the First Jefferson UU Church. It was never done this way back in Maryland or the New England UU churches that I have attended. I guess people in that region of the country are simply more prudish. And that is the tradition of the holding of hands at the time of the benediction.
I will admit, I was somewhat startled at that, on that first Sunday I/we were at First Jeff. For there is such a taboo in western culture about “touching.”
Strangers simply recoil at touching another.
When PG (the manager I worked with at Sodexho in Gaithersburg, MD and who is now in the US Army in Kuwait City) and I would walk around the little lake next to our office building after lunch (it was a ¾ mile circle, about 20 minutes), and commiserate about the horrible state of US politics and stuff, sometimes our hands would bump together, and without exception, he would apologize like it was offensive to me or something. He would say that he knew that men in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries would hold hands, that it was culturally acceptable, but he recognized that it was more or less abhorrent in our culture here. I would never comment on that. Just let it pass.
But there is something life-giving about touching.
The newborn infant, lacking in the experience of being touched, will succumb to the failure-to-thrive syndrome. Touching is so crucial for fulfilled life. Look at the animals around us. There are two cats living in our house. They simply demand to be touched. There are in your face, to the point of being obnoxious, insisting on being touched. Look at the dog who scrambles under your feet, demanding to be touched. Look at the sea lions basking on the bank . . . one mass of touching. Look at the baby penguins in the movie “March of the Penguins,” how they are touched. Look at the young hetero-lovers walking in the park, how they touch. Look at the two elderly lesbian residents in a nursing home, how they touch. Look at the two, young, gay studs, how they touch.
And so the UU Churches in this area incorporate “touching” in their benediction ritual. For some it will be a perfunctory touch. An obligation. A moment of prolonged endurance. A gritting-of-the-teeth-to-get-this-over-with-experience and let me return to my sterile cocoon of prudish isolationism. For those who are in love, it is an intimate shared communication of awesome experience, culminated with a tender squeeze at the final “Amen.” For others, it is a recognition that though they feel as untouchable as a leper, someone is still willing to touch them. For still others, it is a validation that they really are a part of the human family.
Oh, that the churches of my youth would have condoned “touching” in the benediction ceremony. Oh, how I would and did scheme to sit next to the boy I was so infatuated with. And if the holding of his hand were a part of the benediction ritual, I would have benedicted the whole service from introit to end.
But alas, touching was abhorrent. So abhorrent.
Ayman, I remember that moment of a shared touch on that Sunday we first met. You had been seated on my right side. We were standing for the benediction. Directed to hold our neighbor’s hand. I sort of freaked out. For I had not touched another’s hand in well over two years other than the perfunctory handshake that is typically void of meaning.
But we touched. A warm, firm, responsive touch.
Like the infant that needs to be touched to survive, that brief moment of touch was an infusion of survivability.
At that final “Amen,” I squeezed. Simply could not help it. That desperate drive of the-obnoxious-touchable-cat. And the shared squeeze was felt in return.
I am not sure if I am completely comfortable with that UU tradition here in Texas . . . so culturally steeped in the abhorrence of touching I am.
It is not that I find touching abhorrent.
It is I am so fearful of touching.
But I certainly recognize the emotional and therapeutic fulfilling that it can bring to the members of a congregation. In time I will get “used” to it. And getting “used” to it might rob it of its powerful impact.
Must wait and see.
Perhaps humans might evolve yet, to the point of being an in-your-face-obnoxious-cat in the demand and fulfillment and acceptability of touching and being touched.
The Refectory Manager
posted by The Refectory Manager | 11:44 AM
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