Holy Imagination and the Sense of Touch

"As he went, the crowds pressed in on him.  Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her.  She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, and immediately her flow of blood stopped. Then Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds are hemming you in and pressing against you.”  But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I noticed that power had gone out from me.”  When the woman realized that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”   
Luke. Chapter 8, verses 42 through 48. ​

Take a deep breath.  Take time to be aware of everything you are in touch with right now, literally.
Your clothes and how they fit and feel on your body. Your shoes and the ground beneath you. The pew cushion you are sitting on and the hard pew underneath. The elbow brushing up next to you or maybe the hand you are holding. What is touching you or maybe you are touching it? 

In this photo of elephants, who is touching who? Can you even tell which instigated the loving touch? 

In the book, How to Train a Wild Elephant written by Jan Chozen Bays, this analogy is shared: 
The Buddha once compared the mind to a wild elephant. Like an elephant running rampant through the jungle, the untrained mind expends unnecessary energy when allowed to roam free.
Taming an elephant requires tethering it to a stake. This forces the elephant to remain still, to conserve its energy, and to reduce harm to its environment. Mindfulness exercises are the mind’s stakes. They offer a point of focus to quiet the mind.

In the book, How to Train a Wild Elephant, Bays offers 53 simple exercises for incorporating mindfulness into a daily routine.  Mindfulness means focusing intentionally on the present task or environment wile noticing sensory information.    Practice #11 is Loving Touch: use loving hands and loving touch even with inanimate objects.  

We don't think twice often about how we close a door, or crumple up a piece of paper and throw it away.  How we touch our utensils when eating.   The force in which we touch the keys of our computer when responding to an email.  Dragging chairs across the room.   As an example of loving touch, Jan Chozen Bays shares a story about Zen Master Maezumi Rosi and how he opens envelopes with a letter opener to assure a clean cut so that he can remove the contents with intentional love and care. 

Have you even seen a teen kick off their shoes, drop their hoodie on the floor, and throw their backpack in a corner.  How do you touch your clothes at the end of the day?  
Bays shares how another Buddhist Monk takes time to carefully fold his robes each night and put them under his mattress to 'press' them.  Treating each robe as if it is the robe of Buddha. 

What we touch, and how we mindfully touch, allows us the opportunity to experience the presence of the Divine.  By our mindfulness, our imaginations are sparked through our sense of touch.  Our sense of touch never turns off.  It is always at work, helping us to explore our world, to connect and make meaning of things.  Our spiritual sense of touch is a symbol for our closeness to the Divine, the feeling of being embraced and of belonging. 

We can experience the Divine from how a monk touches their robe as the robe of the Buddha.
We can experience the Divine in how we touch the earth as the body of God.
We can experience the Divine in how we reach to touch the hem of Jesus as the hem of God.
We can experience the Divine in how we reach to touch the living and even inanimate objects we encounter in our daily lives. 

How we reach out, touch, and seek the presence of God is a practice:
     Where do you find the hem of God’s garment?  
     What can you feel in your hands that reminds you of God? 
     What textures remind you of God’s presence?
      How can our body physically recognize God?

Everything we touch can be a mindful, prayerful, spiritual practice of connection.  Everything we lovingly touch can spark awareness of the Divine.   

How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness: Simple Daily Mindfulness Practices For living life more fully and joyfully, by Jan Chozen Bays, Shambhala Publishing, 1991

---