The Power of Touch… Hello to my weekend readers. This last week Al and I were off-duty so we enjoyed time with friends, did our grocery shopping, took the dog out, and thanked God for air-conditioning! Even up here in northern New Mexico we were in the high 90’s; back in Arizona it was baking time—however, it is a dry heat, right?

Yesterday we watched 60 Minutes and I was mesmerized by the new technology helping people who have lost limbs, are paraplegic, etc. The incredible scientists and doctors that work together on these technologies had one goal: to help these people have a sense of touch again. Why? Because touch is one of the beautiful and powerful intimate feelings God has created in humans and animals. I shudder to think what it would be like if I couldn’t feel a hug from Al, or a warm nose-nudge from Moose, my LabraDane!

A few days ago, while filling my 11 hummingbird feeders, a couple were taking a walk in the campground and stopped to put some books in our little “library-swap” cabinet. We got to talking and they shared their excursion the day before, which included a tire blow-out way up in the mountains. The man told me “knock on wood, my spare was in good shape and we got down the mountain.” I could identify with that kind of problem—it’s happened to us! However, it was his words that caught me—knock on wood—as if knocking on wood is going to change your circumstances…hmmm?

This old superstition is used a lot yet, what does it really do for us? Well, for the Druids, it was power: “Knocking or touching wood derives from the Druid belief that malevolent spirits inhabited wood, and that if you expressed a hope for the future you should touch, or knock on wood to prevent the spirits from hearing and presumably preventing your hopes from coming true.” We can get a good laugh out of such silliness, yet a lot of folks believe it. I’m not sure if they are thinking it will make everything OK, but—really or better yet, reality?

Getting back to the power of touch is God’s gift and not a superstition. Wouldn’t you rather touch Jesus than a block of wood?! That’s where we find power in many ways. And that takes me back to the power of touch. Remember the lady with the blood issues? Here’s her story from the gospel of Luke 8:43-48 [ERV]:

“A woman was there who had been bleeding for twelve years. She had spent all her money on doctors, but no doctor was able to heal her. The woman came behind Jesus and touched the bottom of his coat. At that moment, her bleeding stopped. Then Jesus said, “Who touched me?” They all said they had not touched him. And Peter said, “Master, people are all around you, pushing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me. I felt power go out from me.” When the woman saw that she could not hide, she came forward, shaking. She bowed down before Jesus. While everyone listened, she told why she touched him. Then she said that she was healed immediately when she touched him. Jesus said to her, “My daughter, you are made well because you believed. Go in peace.”

There’s no doubt Jesus also touched her and helped her to her feet as well. The crowds got quiet and the touch of Jesus was palpable as it reached out to them, too. Like the 60 Minutes program, watching the people having the return of the sense of touch was also palpable for them, the doctors, Scott Pelley, and for Al and I, too! Their faces lit up, they had tears of joy, and their descriptions of what happened made me cry as I listened to their words, which in sum, was: “I feel human again.” A gift lost now given back from the gift God gives us with technology. Who’d a thought?!

Old superstitions will always be around and we can laugh about them, but we really need to make sure that those words have no power over us—whether we touch/knock on something or not! When we’re troubled, concerned or stuck in a circumstance we are afraid of, we need to “touch Jesus” as our go-to-response. Like the woman with a blood issue, we press through the noise of our godless world and listen to Jesus who will touch our lives in ways we could never imagine. So, be kind to the wood and stay in touch with Jesus—always! AMEN.