LENT 1

* * *

TOUCH

SUNDAY

My fingers, hands, and feet make contact with many surfaces as I move through a day's activities. Shoulders, hips, elbows, back, and butt are all points at which my body makes contact with the world as I sit and balance. Once lifted from the morning pillow, my head may settle gently in rest or suffer the occasional sharp, smarting blow, oscillating between these extremes in response to myriad directives and distractions as I navigate the day.

Touch is the sense — and medium — through which I most often encounter the spirited holy. This awareness came vividly on one of those incredibly gorgeous late summer mornings when every aspect of the world around me seemed in concert as I walked the full length of Lincoln Park, one of Chicago's loveliest and largest green expanses. A gentle but quite noticeable breeze blew through trees, grasses, and flowers and landed upon my bare arms, face, and legs like a passionate caress.

As a year-round walker, I am often accompanied by wind and though I seldom make the connection, on this particular morning the Hebrew word ruach came to mind. Ruach means "breath," or "spirit," and the gentle wind caressing me was a sudden reminder of the many ways I'm touched by this manifestation of God. Moreover, the wind reminded me that touch is not only how I actively connect with the world; it's also a way the world — and God — connect with me.

Touch is essential to an encounter with the spirited God; the very word "spirituality" is derived from and inextricably linked to a receptivity to touch. The silent, invisible God comes to us, communes with us, most often in and through the ability of our bodies and souls to be touched. Whether it's the physical sensation of wind, rain, or other element upon our skin, or the less tangible movement of emotions stirring deep within. When that rush of visual, audible, tangible, aromatic stimuli suddenly pierces, finds a route to our interior, arousing the host of emotions that give expression to feeling, we've been touched by the Holy.

MONDAY

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. ... [A]s you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

(Matthew 25:35–36, 40)

This familiar teaching of Jesus in Matthew's Gospel is filled with touch. To feed the hungry, relieve the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the vulnerable, and visit the captive, our bodies must be motivated. Hands and feet must move. The fulfillment of the gospel is hands-on.

And while it's inferred that these undertakings be directed to the needy, don't overlook Jesus's subtle reminder that wherever and whenever offered, these ministrations are given to all members of God's family.

Nearly every day I handle the ingredients that ultimately become our household meals; labor at writing that may nourish a hungry heart or relieve a thirsty soul; welcome others into relationship through mundane greetings that may lengthen into meaningful conversation; cover the open vulnerability of another with a sheltering word or an arm over a stooped shoulder or a friendly embrace; or sit within the confines of another's imprisonment, keeping company in their captivity until release is found.

Yes, it's laudable to venture afield in charity. But Jesus values also the many ways we touch the lives of those within our own families — the families we've made, and the families we've chosen — all bound up in God's expansive household.

TUESDAY

Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.

(Matthew 6:9–12)

For Jesus, prayer is physical. Not physical in the sense of pious posture. Physical in the sense of bodily activity. If God's realm is to be realized, if God's will is to be manifest on earth as it is in heaven, bodies will be involved. Bodies that need bread to survive. Bread does not make itself; bread is the product of collaboration. God's Creation supplies the ingredients. Human hands make the meal.

Even forgiveness gets physical. My word of absolution is insufficient. I must make amends to those I have injured.

True prayer isn't just spoken, it's lived.

How then shall I pray today?

WEDNESDAY

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

(Jonah 3:10)

[J]ust as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation.

(Luke 11:30)

[A] broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

(Psalm 51:18, The Book of Common Prayer, page 267)

The story of Jonah, Nineveh, and God is so powerful it informs the belief of two families of faith — Jews and Christians. On this Wednesday in the first week of Lent, the story fills the eucharistic lectionary (Jonah 3:1–10, Luke 11:29–32) and is bridged by a resonant reading from the Psalter (Psalm 51:11–18).

The story of Jonah's experience in Nineveh — and of Nineveh's experience of Jonah — is filled with physical action. The plot depends, and the outcome demands, that Jonah physically go to Nineveh and engage personally with the people there.

But the crucial movement in the story isn't physical. It's emotional. The activity of Jonah and the response of Nineveh touched God. When God saw what the people of Nineveh did, God's mind and heart were changed and what God had intended and threatened to do, God chose not to do.

What have I done, what might I do today sufficient to touch God?

THURSDAY

Though the LORD be high ...

he perceives ... from afar.

(Psalm 138:7, The Book of Common Prayer, page 793)

My doctor places his hands just so, and resting them gently, I feel the subtle pressure of one finger, then another. He's reading my body, his trained and experienced fingers searching out the hidden clues beneath.

A massage therapist presses her hands upon my leg. Her fingers quietly glide over the surface, kneading flesh and muscles. "You've been injured here," she says. The old wound left no visible scar, but her fingers see nonetheless.

The physician. The massage therapist. Each has a sense of touch so refined it's as though they're gifted with extra eyes, special eyes that can see what pupil, iris, cornea, and retina cannot.

Theirs is a special touch, unique to their vocations. But their touch reminds me that bodies are only outward and visible manifestations of lives bearing wounds and wonders hidden from my eyes. Though I may not possess their gift of fingers able to see, I am differently made. My eyes and ears, my mind and...