Member-only story
A brief reflection on hugs, quarantine, and Christianity, written for Christ Church Cathedral, Cincinnati
Hello. 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. I also work with the church’s Plumbline rental assistance program, the 5000 Club weekly free dinner, and I am the co-chair of the Gun Violence Prevention committee.
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.
I miss my son’s hugs something terrible. Can’t focus on that of course.
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.
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. 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…
