It is no secret we are a tactile race of beings. From the moment we are born we grab with our hand, suckle, and seek to touch everything we can. Touch is invaluable to our learning process, growth, and comfort. From touch we can connect with our world and other people, even when we feel the Lord God we often say “He touched me.” Christ Jesus our Lord when He rose from the dead bid His disciples touch Him, “And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.” (Luke 24:38-43). Through this sense of touch, we create intimacy as in in a mother holding her child or sex between spouses. It can even be a way to gauge authenticity with a handshake or to comfort with a hug. Touch is a path to so much in this world and now it is being assaulted by a plague.
The way in which we bond, are vulnerable, connect, learn from our surroundings, and more is being besieged by Covid 19, Delta Variant, Lambda Variant, Covid2, and other strains of this virus. The health experts have urged us to social distance, wear masks, and keep from super spreader events like football stadiums. We have followed these health orders for a full year, and the virus continues to mutate. Those who got the vaccine are being urged to wear masks again as the new strains surge in places that seemed to be getting the virus under control. Once again we are facing lockdowns and restrictions.
I am not telling you to disobey such orders, but I want to pose a warning.
If we continue to isolate. To deny people the basic need for touch, for a hug, I fear that what survives Covid will be a people much altered. The Lord said, “it is not good for Man to be alone,” (Genesis 2:18), indeed, nor is it good for people to be unable to express love through touch. Entire generations are being hardwired to be robots, unable to feel, kept behind plastic and steel. This is not good for the soul. As I said we are tactile beings, and to create distance between us and others is recipe for worse than racism and violence we see erupt on TV, it is recipe for madness. On the Prairies in circa 1800s people were going mad for lack of bird song, so canneries were taken to the prairies to sooth people. If that is true, and it is, what about the lack of human touch? Vaccines can’t secure you’ll be exempt, be able to be close to your grandparents and etc, because the mutations like Delta and Lbda infect the vaccinated.
We are at watershed moment in human history that will determine what survives, that love survives. Again I am not advocating anarchy to Covid health protocols, I wear a mask and stay six feet apart, but my soul is in pain. Not being able to hug a friend or touch a future spouse, let alone date them is jarring. The Metropolitan of the Russian Church, Patriarch Kirill said “we are at the end of human history.” (Nov 20, 2017) I think he is right. Touch is how our species survives, how God designed us to express ourselves beyond words. Now it is being censored for good reasons, but as Cistercian Monk Bernard of Clairvaux said, “the path to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Mankind is changing and not for the better. I understand the health experts want to stop a huge death toll, but what about the mental, spiritual, and physical toll? Human touch is a necessity, and Satan is using this virus to destroy us; to mutate us into what I don’t know, but it scares me to imagine. The devil may not have invented Covid, but he is using it to break mankind. Already technology has made people less connected, then Covid came to finish the job. If you wanted to ask me what is a master plan to destroy the human race, its this never ending mutable virus that demands we stay apart from each other. Truly I better understand these words of Christ post-Covid world, “In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones.” (Matthew 24:22). Amen.
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