Friday, January 11, 2019

HEALING POWER OF TOUCH


Did you know that YOU have healing power, literally at your fingertips?  The simple act of touching – not necessarily in a romantic manner – is so powerful that it can slow your heart rate, decrease your blood pressure, and strengthen your immune system!

Our culture is not very affectionate, and we are losing out on the benefits of regular physical interaction with others.  The healing power of touch is so necessary for life that babies not touched regularly don’t grow and develop normally, and children who are not lovingly touched enough are more likely to be violent as adults.[1]

Study about disability stories in the Bible has grown in recent years. Such works distinguish between impairment (a condition) and disability (the effects of such, sometimes socially imposed).  Leprosy in the Bible is not Hansen’s disease as most people know today.  The Hebrew word (sara at) is a ritual term for a variety of conditions that affect people, clothing, and even walls (mold, fungus).  For these reasons, a term such as “defilement” may be a better designation. 

When I first started my job as Operation Director at a soup kitchen, I spent time studying staff, volunteer & client interaction.  It was a tenuous and sometimes violent culture.  Many volunteers, good-hearted as they were to serve, were not prepared to engage the often unkempt, odorous, & often intoxicated clientele.  The clients were treated like community lepers, a defiled people managed by societal rules, much like the lepers read of in scripture.  Over time this culture changed as the staff was trained to embrace the clients where they were at, to treat the clients as “customers” and as far as their comfort level would allow, touch the client.  A handshake, hand on the shoulder, it even grew to hugs as the clients started respecting themselves more and more.

Today’s story of the leper remains timeless in its teaching, beyond our noting that it embraced a myriad of illnesses in the ancient world.  It calls us to break down lingering stereotypes and prejudices about others and to promote justice and inclusion.  Recall how Jesus sought the company of those living on the fringe.  More than physical cures, his loving touch restore persons to their rightful place in community.  Genuine healing demands the removal of oppressive systems, personal & institutional, in all their forms.

We who believe in Jesus know his loving and healing touch.  It is through Jesus’ blood that the gates of life are opens, the waters of Baptism that we are joined to his family, and by the power of the Holy Spirit transubstantiates the bread and wine we offer into the Body & Blood, Jesus’ real presence, His intimate touch as we receive Him.  We are called and directed to take this touch into the a world in need of the healing power of a loving touch.



[1] https://bodyecology.com/articles/healing_power_of_touch.php, Body Ecology “The Proven Healing Power of Touch” © 2018

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