Touch.

It is something we experience and take part in every moment of our lives, but it slips our notice.  We are touched by the air and the wind; we are touched by the water vapor in the air and the ground we walk upon.

Unlike the other four senses, we continuously experience touch from the moment we are born to the moment we die.  With sight, we can close our eyes.  With hearing, we can cover our ears or wear noise cancelling headphones.  With smell and taste, there might not be anything to smell and taste depending on where we are.

But touch is diffuse throughout the body.

For this reason, touch is the main indicator of presence, of being present in a place and time.  We cannot touch or be touched by what is past nor can we touch what is yet to be.

“Reaching out” (2009)

by andrew and hobbes

Touch and Relationships

Throughout the Old Testament, we see that at certain times there were prohibitions on touch.  Such as when God commanded the Israelites not to touch Mount Sinai because He was present on the mountain.  Other holy things are not permitted to be touched unless people are in a certain physical state of purity.  And of course, sexual intimacy (a type of touch), is prohibited for those outside the relationship of marriage.

But why these prohibitions?  The prohibitions on touch indicate that the conditions for the right time and place have not yet been met.

To expand, the expression of any relationship takes the form of touching.  Depending on the nature of the relationship, it takes a different form of touching.  If we are being introduced to someone for the first time, we shake their hands; we don’t hug them.  If see our close friends, we’ll hug them; it is weird if we just shake their hands.  We can tell the nature of a relationship by the orientation of bodies to one another and the type of touching that occurs.

But again, what about time?  In the Song of Songs, there is a phrase that repeats three times.  It is, “Do not stir nor awaken love until it pleases” (Song 2:7, 3:5, and 8:4).  In the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, the word for pleases is actually “wills.”  So it reads, “Do not stir nor awaken love until it wills.”

This is an indication of meeting the conditions for the appropriate time.  On the surface level, the Song of Songs describes a relationship between Solomon and a woman referred to as the Shulamite.  The structure of the book can be divided into three parts: Union, Separation, and Reunion.  In each one of the phases, the Shulamite says this phrase, being keenly aware of the relationship between presence and having fulfilled the conditions for the right time.

This also reflects our relationship with God with whom we have been in union, separation, and reunion. When God reunited with humanity, He took on flesh.  The Apostle John emphasizes the meaning of the Incarnation as God’s becoming present to us when he says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us” (1 John 1:1-2).

When the time was right, we were able to touch Him.  And we still do in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  These preconditions for being present in front of Christ at the right time is what the Apostle Paul referred to as a worthy manner.  In 1 Corinthians 11:27-28, he writes, “Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.  But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

The Right Conditions

The relationship between Christ and the Church is referred to as a marriage throughout the Scriptures as the Apostle Paul expressed in Ephesians 5:28-32, as the Apostle John showed in Revelation, as the early Christians interpreted the Prophets, and as they also interpreted the Song of Songs.  Marriage can become an experience for contemplating the relationship between God and ourselves through committing oneself to another person in the bond of love, but the problem with this is that our culture interferes with the image in two ways.

First, the widespread culture of encouraging premarital and extramarital sexual activity destroys any conception of place, time, and intimacy.  I often wonder if the rise in premarital sexual activity, which has been documented over the past several decades and across the world, is a form of psychological compensation due to having poor familial relationships, poor friendships, and a low estimation of oneself.  The data confirms this in that more than 72% of teenage girls and 55% of teenage boys who engaged in premarital sex wish they waited, while 69% of both men and women who remained celibate until marriage did not regret their decision to do so.

Why do they now wish they waited?

Part of it is the perspective gained through what has happened.  It’s no shocker that most teenagers have no perspective.  This is partly due to their lack of being properly formed by a solid education, partly due to not having a wise adult guide them, and partly due to age.  But the interesting part is that nearly equal inversion.  Those who remain celibate until marriage are doing so out of a vision and values for what it means to enter into an intimate relationship.

Those who engaged in premarital sexual activity, even if once, have it cast a shadow on their future relationships, and even if does not express itself in the conversation between husband and wife, it does so between the individual and their thoughts.  For that reason, the marriage does not lead to the satisfaction that it should have led to, nor does it become the object of contemplation lifting the mind to God.

But our culture also interferes with the image of marriage in another way, by making career primary.  There is this superstition that if someone gets married during their education, training, or early on in their career, it will lead to not completing their courses of study, training, and thus to financial ruin.  But it is a matter of time management and value.  I don’t know anyone who married during this stage of life who failed to complete their course of study or experienced financial ruin.  This has been causing people to push marriage further into their 30s.  But if people wait until their late 30s to get married, which is likely to happen based on the current trend (For reference, here is a chart by the United States census on the median age of first marriage), then it will lead to a shorter time of life spent in intimacy because the body can only experience such for a set period of life.  This will lead to resentment, regret, frustration, stress, and depression, and the following generation will be adversely affected by these things and might be encouraged to do the opposite.  And you see, it becomes a vicious cycle of alternating between late marriage to premarital sex in the teenage years.

The Pandemic and Touch Starvation

With all this reflection on touch, it brings to attention the reality of touch starvation, which is akin to hunger.  I would think that most people have experienced far less touch during the pandemic than was normal for them, even if they totally ignored social distancing protocols.  The workplace environment has still not gone back to normal, and many people are still not comfortable meeting their friends casually such as over a cup of coffee.

Interestingly enough, touch in the context of good relationships has spiritual effects.  Regular physical contact such as shaking hands and even pats on the back for a job well done cause the body to break down cortisol, which lowers stress and boosts the immune system.  It also lowers heart rate and blood pressure, which allows us to refocus, which are essential to paying attention and meditation (both essential to spirituality).

We have lost these things during the pandemic.  And I suspect that this has to do with the frequent feelings of fatigue and difficulty remembering things that most people I know have expressed during the pandemic.

We were created to be present, and this presence is expressed through touch and being touched.  It is expressed in our relationships, in our interaction with the world, and in the liturgy, and in a way all three of these aspects of life make up a Grand Liturgy of Life.

Let’s pray that we get this essential part of our lives back soon.

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