The Tender Touch

How often do you touch someone ? Anyone ? How often are you touched ?

The world seems to divide into 3 groups over touching – those who touch readily, those who just don’t – and those who are learning to touch…….

ChickPea grew up in a family which didn’t touch each other very much at all. There Were Reasons For This which became known very much later. But it meant that she found physical contact very VERY difficult. Anxiety would arise. Didn’t help the teenager find friends. Didn’t do much for the ‘twenty-and-thirty-something’ desperate for a partner.

But teenage years did introduce 2 very lovely people into ChickPea’s life who were ‘Touchers’. They touched everyone – in an honest, unaffected, positive, non-threatening, kind, affirming sort of way. And she learned to cope with being touched. And Life became more positive. And gradually, she realized that Life could be further enriched by touching others.

When she moved away from home to a far city, ‘being touched’ happened less often. But she was now training to be a professional ‘toucher’ for others. When she finished training, and gained confidence in her work, she developed a deep respect and awareness of the therapeutic aspects of touch. Assessing how to best touch each and every patient was a challenge – but respect, care, encouragement and affirmation were all clearly part of the contact experienced. Touch people in the right way for them and they responded positively, did what they were asked and they got better ! – they even got well and left hospital. If ChickPea got it wrong, or ‘inherited’ people who had been touched less than kindly, they would not co-operate, and treatments were difficult. What was great was when people who initially found such contact difficult discovered they could cope with being touched, and they recovered too.

For some, recovery was never going to be possible. But for them, Touch was still therapeutic, and positive and caring and kind and oh – so very welcome. They often needed to touch, in thanks.

Out in The World Outside, the population still has anxiety about ‘touch’ – well, I guess it is about the implications of touch, really. If you but read the news you know how ‘Touch’, in all its inherent innocence and purity, has been and is being abused. Many people ‘back off’ if they think you might touch them.

I guess that’s maybe where Christ’s disciples were at when Jesus was in a crowd and Someone Touched His Cloak. The disciples just didn’t quite ‘get’ it. That there is touch, and touch. That you can bump into someone, and nothing is shared, nothing is gained. But there’s other times…….

And there’s times…….. some times……… when all you want is to be touched, or to touch…..to be held, or to hold. And you long that the ‘dare to’ be transformed into ‘ok to’.

Oh the Sheer Joy when able to find such trust, caring and kindness in a friendship. That you can share a hug, and hold and touch, is just so, so precious and so very wonderful a thing……….

Touch. One of the 5 Senses. A God-given gift.

Yes, ChickPea still finds ‘touching’ a challenge.