Love with Skin

My 7^th graders just finished reading Around the World in Eighty Days. If you’re not familiar with this classic, it takes place in 1872; a man and his servant are trying to prove that transportation technology has advanced to the point that they can circle the globe in eighty days (as you probably inferred from the title).

While we discussed a certain snag the protagonist had encountered, one of my students said, “Well, why doesn’t he just tell the people in London what’s going on?” We had to remind him that this is 1872; he can’t just text somebody on the other side of the world and get a response in a couple minutes.

My word, people – the way our communication systems have advanced! Phileas Fogg had snail mail and telegraphs. That’s about it. We’ve got mail, fax, telephones, texts, email, social media messaging, video chats . . . it’s almost ridiculous.

And it’s sometimes a pain in the butt. When I need to get a quick answer from someone about something, I have to first consider which means to use to contact them. Is this person more likely to check a text, email, or Facebook message first? Do I want to type all this out with my fingers on my cell, or is it easier to type on my laptop? Or do I want to type at all – would it be more efficient to actually call them on the phone and talk with my mouth? But would they even answer the phone? My daughters (and apparently many in their generation) are annoyed to death by phone calls for things like that. This is what text is for! I don’t want to waste my time and energy talking to you! (They’re not actually that rude to their mother – just sayin’.)

The introverted me loves texts. But the wise me knows I need to hear an actual voice once in a while. And the even more enlightened me knows that I need to sit face-to-face with people far more often than any of us do anymore.

Toward the end of my surgery recovery weeks, a friend from school stopped by to deliver me some papers, and she sat to talk a bit. While she was there, another school friend came with something else to deliver, and we all ended up sitting at my kitchen table chatting for a couple hours. It was wonderful! One of them commented on Facebook later that her grandparents used to do this stuff all time – just stop by a friend’s house and sit to visit for a while. Nobody does that anymore. What a loss.

Because we need to sit in each other’s spaces; we need to breathe each other’s air and smell each other’s fragrance and touch each other’s skin. I’ve been reading lately about “skin hunger”, something one of my past counselors mentioned (although not by that name). Human beings need skin-to-skin contact. This is biological. It’s science. “Without touch, humans deteriorate physically and emotionally.” Witness the mental health crises in our country during the lockdowns.

My eldest is a paraprofessional in special education classes at her school. For an adult there to be able to physically restrain or touch a student (and there are often special ed students that need such restraint or touch), they need special training and certification. And I absolutely get that – there are dangers inherent to such behavior, and we need to protect kids and teachers. But it still makes me sad. Lord knows that some of these children are in desperate need of healthy, loving touch.

We all are.

As a single woman in an empty nest, I’m not touching much skin on a regular basis. And I feel the lack. This is a challenge even in my relationship with God. There are times when I find myself trying to imagine God’s arms around me hugging me. Because I can know in my head that he loves me . . . I can see loving gifts he has given me . . . I can hear his loving words in the Bible . . . but love needs skin sometimes.

And I think that’s why the church is described as the Body of Christ. Because the church is not a building; it is people, people who have skin. He knows we are physical beings who need physical touch and physical presence, and he physically meets us through his Body.

So by all means, send the texts and the FB messages and the emails. But do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing. When the Lord gave us this instruction through the author of Hebrews, he was quite aware of contagious viruses and long to-do lists and social exhaustion. These things do not negate the command. Togetherness is not an option for the Christian life.