The Ecclesiology of Hand Holding

There's something sweet, innocent, and incredibly sensual about holding hands. I don't mean sensual in a sex-oriented way. I mean sensual in that it gives you a constant sensory reminder that someone else is there.

We ordered pizza the other night and just as Melissa said, "Let's pray," Caleb grabbed my hand. It was kind of a brusque, unpolished motion, but it was a brief reminder of it's not just us and even more so, it's not just me and God. I so often want to (in my Western mindset) separate my relationship with God from all my others. I want to say "It's just me and Jesus and that's all I need," but that's not the Gospel in Scripture.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "The last individual thing I ever did was to become a Christian."

I've been meditating on that for some time. Especially since I'm in a relationship now- an honest, open, healthy, Godly relationship- it seems more obvious to me just how much we are called into community. We are not meant in any form to be alone. Some of us, yes, are called to be single. But not alone.

I think the church ignores singles as a group. It assumes that the default mode is married and the goal is to get everyone to fit into that framework. But the number of singles in the church is growing, not shrinking. We need to embrace the fact that singleness is a gift from God and we can learn from it- not just learn patience or how to bear the season that you are in until God brings you into a new one. We learn an amazing commitment to God and His principles. And we learn that community is not just two people. Not even three. Community is such a wide concept that we can't begin to understand it. This thing we've entered into- this relationship with millions of people worldwide- is a bond that no amount of persecution, torture, strife, or ignorance can break.

Tonight we went to a movie. Caleb and I held hands through the whole thing. At the slow parts, his thumb would caress the back of my hand and I'd be reminded that he was there. At the tense parts, I'd squeeze a bit and he'd squeeze back. We're a community, all of us.

Whose hand will you hold?