Human Touch August, 2018
When I shampoo my hair, it feels good. When someone else washes my head, it feels even better. Same head, same kind of fingers, same shampoo but it is just different. I can sense it.
A computer can execute a perfect series of notes. When I listen to that music, I can tell a machine did it. You know how I know? Because it is perfect. No human can do that. Close, but not perfect. A human would make a tiny (or in some cases, huge) difference in the notes played. THAT I can recognize as of human origin.
Remember “paint by the numbers“? You received a canvas with little areas inscribed with a numeral. You found the correct color in the pots and applied it to the spot with the same number. When it was finished, done perfectly, it did not look human. Once in a while someone would color outside the spot, and it could become “art.”
I was thinking the other day about the Big Box stores. They try to be everything in the world of shopping and even of services, but let’s face it, they can’t. They aren’t doctors, pastors, dentists, attorneys, or fire fighters. The human touch is an arena that will forever separate the Big Box stores from certain very necessary things in life.
Studies of children in foster care, orphanages, and preemie wards of hospitals have shown that the ones who are held by human caregivers do well. Babies that are not touched do poorly and sometimes even perish from the lack of contact. There is just something about being held and appreciated that is overwhelmingly special.
Even God, who knows all, understood the need to experience this. He came to earth as Jesus to feel the human touch. Jesus felt it when Mary washed his feet with perfume and swept them clean with her hair and tears. Jesus gave his touch when he washed the feet of all twelve disciples. Yes, even Judas who was about to betray him.
God created, let me repeat – God created. He also created you and did so in His own image. He created you to be a creator. So, play your music just a little less than perfect. Wash the head and feet of others applying your human touch. Paint outside the lines. You don’t have to be perfect. Just be the wonderful unique human that God made you to be.
A Guy Named Bob 