Contact.
My Dad was never the most physically affectionate of people. It’s not a criticism – I don’t think there’s a law that suggests all loving people must express themselves in physically affectionate ways. I did grow up, however, to appreciate expressions of physical affection.
In any case, although he wasn’t a physically affectionate type, my Dad was brilliant at the the handshake. A good, firm handshake. He wasn’t imposing himself as a strong man by it. If you wanted to get into the whole squeezing to do your power play bit, that was your issue. In his handshake, my Dad affirmed his contact with you. It is still undeniably in my humble opinion the greatest handshake in the world.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve taken a keen interest in the handshake ever since. I love all the ways in which people greet each other, it fascinates me considerably. The handshake, though. There’s something about the handshake. There’s something about the affirmation of the contact.
One of the reasons I blog is expression. I love words and posting them as regularly as I can is a method of expression that I value a great deal. I also value WhatsApp as a means of expression too. One of the things about this form of expression is that it can be as close as the reader wants it to be, but once I release the words that’s kind of it for me. My words make contact.
Yet to this day there is something about being in the company of a loved one. Being in the same living and breathing space. Sharing life at close quarters. And in doing so establishing and reaffirming contact. It says I am here for you. I am here with you. We touch and so we share and connect. In doing that there is a silent transfer in the context of good relationships that reminds each other that in as much as the feel lonely from time to time, they are never alone. They don’t have to walk this journey alone.
My heart continues to ache when I think about those on the brink of throwing it all away because there is no one with whom they can have that contact. It hurts my heart to know that even in Christian circles where gatherings take place on a regular basis that contact is not always really and truly made. The surface smiles and niceties are covers for pains and agonies that cannot be expressed because there’s a sense in which contact cannot be made.
The transforming love of Jesus is evident when contact is made. It’s evident in communities of grace that establishes and reaffirms contact. Having walked perilously close to the edge of destruction because I never felt that contact and then the loving grace of God revealed through individuals expressing that contact has proved to me time and again that this love is real.
It also gives me pause to consider again how in a day and age where hurt has been caused by violations and broken promises that truth and love can still win out. Contact can be made.
(Photo by Dương Hữu on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 