I'm a bit nervous about sharing this train of thought because it gets pretty personal. If you're not comfortable with too much disclosure, please skip.
A number of months ago I was presenting Sharing Time in Primary as part of my calling. The exact topic escapes me, but I remember that the activity included the children following in footsteps to find pictures of Jesus doing what Jesus did. Healing, teaching, praying, serving. I'd prepared the activity and we did it down to the manual's instructions. What I did not prepare for was how overcome with insight and, in turn, emotion, as I pinned the pictures side by side on the board.
I'll come back to that Sharing Time in a minute.
I don't mark my calendar for the talks or anything, but about once a month, or every six weeks or so, I find myself talking with the children about appropriate touching. Sometimes the focus is more on "stranger danger" and saying no when you feel uncomfortable. We talk about what would make you feel uncomfortable, as explicitly as the children seem to want to. I try not to push it too far to be really scary, but I also don't think I hold much back so they are familiar with different possible situations. Sometimes we talk more about the beautiful parts of love between a husband and wife, both emotional and physical. (We use the oh so descriptive Lego lesson of parts fitting together. I feel like I should patent that metaphor it's been so useful. Ha!) The conversations don't last very long, but I hope to keep the topic up for discussion.
I feel like things are pretty open in our house about this subject. The children are so young, so innocent, so curious. It's actually quite delightful talking with them about how life works. I hate opening their eyes to the ugly aspects. I pray fervently that the ugly is never a part of their reality, like I know it is for many many children and adults. I know Collin and I will do everything we can to protect them, but other people have their agency and can use it to do awful things. I can't be there all the moments. Already the boys are gone more hours a day then I am with them. I feel so safe about their school teachers and the coaches in their lessons. But I have to admit I go into those relationships with about equal trust and suspicion. It's hard to know before bad things happen how to prevent it, or deal with them when they do.
When I was in high school my dad told me that when I was about six and seven there was a man that attended the church our family did. My dad read the signs of this man's behavior and told me to stay well away from him--not to take sweets, not to sit on his lap, not to be in a room with him. I'm amazed that my six year old self listened and obeyed, but I was blessed for it. Dad, correct me if I'm mistaken about the details of that conversation years ago, but I believe there were soon after reports of abuse from other children in the congregation. I still get shivers thinking of a close call.
The one time in my life that I felt, just for a split second, a touch that was ugly still rankles. I was a young teenager with a church youth group at a service project in a home for people with challenges. We were serving a dinner, I think, and I remember feeling a hand brush all the way down my back and grope. It was a second in time but I felt so shocked and ashamed. I went and stood in a corner and would not be drawn back in. I never talked about it. My leaders must have been confused why I would become so sulky acting all of a sudden, or maybe just chalked it up to teenage moods. I actually resented them for a time, bringing me to a place where I felt--again, just for a minute--victimized. I've worked through that incident, but I won't forget the feelings, even if I don't have to feel them anymore. I think that's part of what empathy is, so I'll remember it.
I'm not sure if that experience has a direct correlation to my next confession, but perhaps. I'm not sure when it started, but suddenly it seemed, at adolescence I became very sensitive to touch. I did not like it at all, from anyone. I shunned the touch of my own parents. I avoided any contact. I turned a cold shoulder when they tried to show affection. I think I still craved it, and it's a credit to my mom and dad that for years they didn't give up trying. I remember a moment when I was about fifteen I was sitting down the pew in church from my dad. I think a sibling of mine was between us. He reached over behind the bench to rest his hand gently on my shoulder. I pulled away, mostly by habit at that point I believe. I looked over at him and his expression is still imprinted on me. He removed his hand to his lap and looked down, so sad and weary at my distrust. He, who protected me and would only ever approach me in a kind and decent way with a father's love. I was rejecting the good kind of love and touch and I knew it. I tried to come back from several years of habit and mindset. It was slow, but I gradually came to accept and appreciate touches and even hugs from family--and even offer them sometimes!
And I've come an even longer way since then, finding great comfort and joy in the embraces of my own family--my husband and lover, and my often needy but always enthusiastic children.
So now I'm back to the Sharing Time lesson. The pictures and accounts of Jesus performing his work. They were each about some exchange of a physical gesture, in addition to the spiritual uplift. I'd thought a lot about the spiritual aspect before--the sins forgiven, the spirit and body made whole, the understanding of mind. Hands laid on a head was only a vehicle for the priesthood power to be channeled from one person to another, right? Even the woman who touched the cloak of Jesus proved that touch was just a medium to a higher source of power, right? No, not just. For some reason the sheer banality of the human touch had escaped me. The very purpose of God becoming man was to touch. To touch on all the levels. To make the spirit and the body whole forever. To connect the eternal spiritual soul with the physical present. Contact from one human to another, the way Jesus did, is the transcendence of mortality.
I guess I don't know how I spirits touched, so I can't say this as doctrine. I may be wildly out of line. But I do know that the chemical reaction of a body touching another is powerful. Our pre-earth life spirits may have touched in their own ways, but with the addition of the body to the spirit the capability of a touch is cosmic.
It all hit me there in Primary. Of course, I could hardly articulate what I was feeling, never mind to a group of children under eight. What I did start to weep about while talking to them was that Jesus taught us the way to touch each other. And I mean that literally. He taught us how to touch. There's a song about his hands that I think I used to roll my eyes at a little bit (I rolled my eyes at most things, immature me). His hands showed us the proper way to reach out. He was gentle and sure, quiet and strong. He prepared food for his friends and students, he opened scriptures to read aloud, the warm weight of his hands rested on the heads and arms of many as he healed, he dirtied his hands washing the feet of his disciples.
I told the children that I was shy about touching others, but that it was okay to show people you care by touching their arms or shoulders, by allowing others to touch you on your hand or shoulder (and I said, sorry, I might also pat you on the head sometimes). Just like Jesus did. Your family can give hugs, serve each other, give neck or foot massages if the person says yes. These are appropriate ways to touch--to touch the body of friend or family, and to touch their spirits as well.
I hope that I can continue to learn and practice touching others in the right ways. I'm trying to receive hugs from friends with more than awkward politeness for a social convention. I'm trying to let myself touch someone's forearm when in a good conversation--or actually, at least not cringe when they do to me. I'm especially practicing listening better to the needs of my children, in their varied preferences for affection. I'm being more gentle and deliberate about touching Davy when he is prickly and on the flip side, letting him touch me when I may be prickly but he is ready to show me affection. I'm drawing strength and contentment from Eddy's serene displays and letting him climb on my lap even though he's getting too big to fit comfortably. I'm respecting Eliza's wish for no more kisses when she says and kisses when she says (so pretty much I'm letting myself be bossed). And I'm remembering to give Collin a head scratch more often.
Love and touch can be the most beautiful thing in the world. Yes, we need to prepare ourselves and our children against the perversion of it (stupid Satan) but mostly let's practice the power of touch the way Jesus did.
I just don't think there is much better in existence than holding a loved one's hand.
