Touched

The other day someone described me as “refreshing and real” after we had dined together for the first time. I have pondered those words since hearing them. Of course I am real. Maybe it is the phenomenon of turning 50 that prompts the need to be real, authentic and true to those 50 years of life’s lessons. And, I realize I have not always been able to be real. My desires to be loved, accepted and to excel in any given context have had more influence than I would like to admit. Whatever its origin, being authentic to who I am at the center of my being is very life giving at this time. What I have discovered also is that I am not significantly different at heart than the girl who left Radnor or the earthy young mother in Memphis, or the thirty-seven year old housewife from the burbs who entered seminary. One consistent longing identifiable in all of those stages has been for someone to connect with my true self, the real me, which I cannot always reveal.

Basketball great, Bill Russell once said, “Our whole lives, it seems, we are only deciding how often and to whom we should expose ourselves. We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young, then spend the rest of our lives hoping that someone will reach inside and touch us–just touch us. Anything more than that would be too much to bear.” [from Sports Illustrated, June 8, 1970]

Hoping that someone will reach into my shell and touch me, I have deliberately been more open and accessible in the past year. Along about February, I began to pray this simple prayer, “God make me open to love.” It has been my deepest longing and most confusing pursuit. I have experienced great joy through connections made and strengthened and I have experienced disappointment, maybe even heart break at connections that ended before they could bear much fruit.

Today I can identify three ways in which I have been touched beneath the shell.

As a theologian, I have strongly held beliefs that it is only God who can fill our deepest longing to be touched and to be known. I believe that each one of us has a God-sized hole within us that will continue to be empty until we know God dwells in us; that unconditional love is already ours. There also seems to be a requirement that we allow that love to flow from us out into the world; outflow governing the inflow. I have felt it flowing through me as I reach out to others in times of need and for no reason at all. One of my great joys is laying hands on someone who has come for prayer. I can feel the love of God pouring through me and out of me and when I am done I am more filled than I was before the prayers. As amazing and awesome as this is, sometimes it is not enough, the longing to be touched still exists.

Somewhere in my 37th year of life, I discovered the great joy of deep friendship -maybe for the first time. I walked across the campus of Pacific School of Religion headed towards orientation. In my path was an attractive woman with a pleasant smile. I remember her brunette hair was in a French braid that extended down her back and was tied with a white ribbon. On her left hand I noticed a wedding band. My first thoughts were, “someone like me.” It was immediately comfortable to talk and to share experiences with Phyllis. That evening I would discover we weren’t as much alike as I had imagined, and that it didn’t matter. In just 5 short months, Phyllis would become a pillar of strength in my life as I relied on her through my husband’s “coming out” process and divorce.

One day Phyllis went too far in an attempt to help me stand up for myself and we got into an argument. She had no idea that an argument with me meant I would not only walk away from the fight, but away from the relationship. Time passed and my interaction with her was limited to polite greetings. I had added another layer to my shell and closed her out as I had done every other female friend to that point. When the relationship got rocky, I would cut and run. But, Phyllis would have none of that. Tired of my attempts to close her out of my heart she got right in my face and confronted me. It might have been the first time a woman had ever said she loved me and then she let me know that it did not depend on whether I returned that love or not. She reached right into my shell and touched me. Phyllis showed me the great joy of loving a friend and being touched. Because of this breakthrough relationship, I now enjoy much more intimacy with friends and am able to resist the urge to take flight when the going gets tough. But for whatever reason, it isn’t enough.

The third source of touch that seems to complete the circle, when in combination with the other two, is the kind of touch that only happens with a man. I am blessed and cursed to have known the briefest of touches by some amazing men. The blessing is to know that there are differences in their touch and I have experienced the differences. The curse is that there have been several and not one with whom I can plumb the depths of our ability to sustain that touch. My experience has taught me that Russell is right on one level, anything more than just a touch would be too much to bear. But I have a belief -no an intuitive certainty that there is more to be experienced from a sustained relationship where the touch deepens our ability to sustain the connection. As evidenced by how the physical intimacy of a couple can grow to new heights of pleasure and satisfaction, I know the ability to bear the connection of true self to true self for more than a touch can be reached. I long for the chance to prove what my heart knows.

God help me to open my shell at just the right times.