A brief reflection on hugs, quarantine, and Christianity, written for Christ Church Cathedral, Cincinnati.
Many of you who read my posts already know that I’m a Vestry member at Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati.
Vestry, for those who don’t know, is the elected leadership team of the church. Some of the other committees I am involved at are the church’s Plumbline rental assistance program, the 5000 Club weekly free dinner, and the Gun Violence Prevention committee.
But I am not here to discuss those things; instead I write to tell you that brownies are not hugs.
I miss hugging. I miss hugging my mother-in-law and several others of you from church. I miss how I know she looks forward to my hugs, as do some of you.
My son’s hugs? I miss my son’s hugs something terrible. I can’t focus on that of course, because it makes my heart ache to know that for now, for some undetermined amount of time, I can’t hug him.
I need to learn that brownies are not hugs. Perhaps I am writing to tell myself that.
I am eating a lot of brownies these days. But they are a lousy substitute.
Hugging is not part of the discipline of church. It’s not a sacrament, it’s not one of the teachings. It’s not an official practice like the Peace — though during the Peace is when we sneak a lot of it in.
We’re subversives.
We didn’t pick up hugging from Jesus.
He was too busy to hug. Always walking around town to town. Meeting lepers and tax collectors. Hugging people who aren’t used to being hugged is uncomfortable and awkward. I imagine that he found it better to keep a polite distance. It’s professional.
So then, hugging is something that we added to Christianity, like Crock-pot meatballs and cheese cubes in the undercroft after a service. It’s not a sacrament, but more of an innovation.
Good job, us.
Jesus would preach from town to town, sometimes to a crowd, sometimes to a lonely person just trying to get water. People were moved. And he would lead them up to the edge of profound understanding.
We read about the instant when their hearts were changed, the scales fell from their eyes. These are people standing on the precipice of understanding that this is the guy from the prophecies.
So they’d ask, “Hey are you the guy from the prophecies?”
Then Jesus would, of course, NOT answer their questions. Teachers, am I right?
No, Jesus would say, “What do YOU think?”https://player.vimeo.com/video/411049563?app_id=122963Here’s Jack, with his chair in an unusual place to make a better background for filming.
The person is experiencing a life-changing revelation and Jesus would give sort of a cosmic shrug.
That’s frustrating. They’d be left to figure it out.
So then, hugging is something that we added to Christianity, like Crock-pot meatballs and cheese cubes in the undercroft after a service. It’s not a sacrament, but more of an innovation.
Good job, us.
That feels a bit like coronavirus quarantine. This moment in history. It’s leading us up to some sort of understanding. It feels transitional. Liminal. Cusp-ish.
But when we ask, what have you come here to teach us? The moment says, “What do YOU think?”
I think that, like Jesus, this moment is here to reveal what is valuable. It might not be exactly the same thing to all of us.
Here, the moment says, I give you a whole bunch of free time. But I take away your community. And, I give you cheap gas, but nowhere to go. I give you online meetings. (and if you’re like me, you’re continually forgetting about those meetings!) I have your leaders on TV every day. (Some of these things are better than others.)
But I miss hugging. Even those of you who I would never hug. I miss you.
Sometimes I feel like this moment is here to teach me something. And if so, I am sorry so many of you had to come along with me on the journey. I’d have learned it a different way if God saw fit.
Frustratingly, what I’m on the verge of understanding is something I thought I knew all along. The best thing about our community is us. All of us. 5000 Club, Bible Study, clients and volunteers at Plumbline, Cathedral staff, our rituals, our ceremonies, our chance encounters in the undercroft (oh chance encounters, that’s a whole other thing! Remember just bumping into someone you haven’t seen in a while? That doesn’t happen on Zoom.)
Those things are the kingdom of God. Brownies, are NOT the kingdom of God. And, of course, I’ve learned that brownies are not hugs.
I think that this moment is here to reveal what is valuable. It might not be exactly the same thing to all of us.
So now, to console myself, I am going to go and try to do something good in this world, to make it feel less overwhelming and more manageable. Maybe I will send a friendly email to someone who is not expecting it.
After every church service, Reverend Dick Rasner dismisses us with his send-off line, “Our worship is over, our service begins.” I like that.
I worry that my signature phrase has become “brownies are not hugs.”
I also worry that I wrote an entire essay in the voice of Andy Rooney.
However, I feel like I need a decent send-off. My own dismissal line.
So I will leave you with the words I used to say to my students at the end of every class: “You only get one shot at today. Make it count.”
@jackmjose is a freelance writer and editor, and an educator. He is active in his community, working to reduce gun violence and end homelessness. He hopes fervently he has not become an old crank like Andy Rooney.
By Jack Jose on .
Exported from Medium on March 25, 2021.