Somebody touched me...

“Touch has a memory.” 

– John Keats

He was a small man sitting alone in circular waiting room.  He had been glancing at the book in his hand, then gazing to some distant place…returning to the book again.

The Big Easy…

I had been in New Orleans for a three-day training program at one of the local downtown hospitals.  Rather than staying in city, the hotel was in Metairie twenty minutes or so away.  While things are coming back, other than the downtown tourist areas, most everywhere is still undergoing substantial rehabilitation. 

Folks often think traveling to these kinds of places is exciting and in some cases sort of exotic.  For the less traveled, it goes like this: Up and at it for breakfast around 6:30AM.  Work through the day…finish up after dark…eat dinner somewhere in the late 7PM to early 8PM hours, finishing an hour or so later.  That leaves a little time to read and tuck in to start the cycle once again.  It is incredibly exotic!!

The event…

We were waiting for security to open a small conference room, where the morning was spent team teaching a course on the management of chronic back and neck pain.  In the 10 minutes or so during ‘the wait,’ I watched this fellow repeat the cycle of eye to book…eye to some distant place…eye back to the book.  He would read a few words and then think a little about what he had read.

The guard came and as we started toward the room, I walked by the seated man and noted he was in the Scriptures – he was ‘redeeming his time…’ while waiting for a doctor’s appointment.

As I passed he looked up and our eyes briefly met.  “What book are you reading?” I asked.  He looked a bit startled, refocusing his eyes, “Luke Chapter 8.”  He replied.  “What’s it saying?” I followed. 

In a halting rhythmic Haitian thick English accent – the French oozing compellingly from his tongue – he began to read the story of the woman who had had an issue of blood for 12 years, and could find no relief.  She believed if she touched Christ’s garment she would be healed…so she did and the scripture says she was healed.

Just then, the man was called for his appointment and he stood.  I said to him, “Do you know what the next few scriptures say?”  He shook his head no. “Not yet.”

I replied, “Christ says, 'Somebody touched me.'” To which his disciples replied, that he was in a crowd with many people touching him.  Christ responded, “Somebody touched ME,” for he had felt virtue come out of him.  It was not a handshake touch…it was not a pat on the back…it was an intimate connection to his spiritual body…a transfer of spirit understood by every parent who calms their child through the touch of their hand, a look of safety as their eyes connect, or the warmth of the bond when holding one another.

All I know is in that instant and interchange, the universe stopped for the two of us.  We looked into each other’s eyes for the briefest of moments…excellent moments…a common and transcendent bridge of communication.  In that ever so fleeting connection...there was no time.

We shook hands smiled, nodded in acknowledgement and off we went to our respective days.

It was good…

My life seems to be filled with little moments like this.  I suppose, in some ways, I look for them.  I sometimes think maybe it is because God knows how frail I am and that I need them…need them to be reinforced that there 'is' meaning…to appreciate the interconnectedness of the human spirit…to be reminded in spite of being bombarded with negativity, separation and self-interest, we are all part of the same tapestry of humanity.

There is so much I don’t know…so much I do not understand…so much that escapes my sense of life.

Stepping away, in an attempt to gather significance from the big picture often overwhelms me.  

But then…then I see a small man sitting on the edge of a circular waiting room, glancing at the book in his hand, gazing to some distant place.  We exchange a few words from a text we have in common, and we find a ‘place.’

It doesn’t matter we will never see one another again…it doesn’t matter we know nothing about each other’s lives…nothing matters really except this…

He touched Me!

- ted