The Touch

It can last a second, like a subtle touch on the shoulder, hence the title. It can last for hours or days. Some people live there all the time, while others have never felt it. It’s actually not like falling in love, being overwhelmed by the beauty of nature, or your response to seeing a baby hippo snuggled up to a giant tortoise¹.

Those things are all wonderful, all gifts, but this is something different. It’s the touch of the Real, and it is unmistakable and self-confirming. Amid the current horrors of a government gone mad and a tortured land I can’t look away from, it affirms that the Real is more real than that. That’s what the Qur’an asserts, but I didn’t learn it from the Qur’an; I learned it as a small child having experiences that were apparently shared by no one around me.

The subtle touch on the shoulder—the shoulder part is just an analogy—assures me that the worst horrors I’ve witnessed or can imagine are just like a really, really long, rough dream. “Woah! That was a bad one!” Eventually we wake up, all of us. The Qur’an also asserts that the waking of those who deliberately and knowingly bring agony on others will not be pleasant².

May you have courage, and deep assurance that the nightmare will open into a new, different morning on this earth or beyond. Feel the warm breeze of spring: ocean scented, flower scented, sun touched. (Not like a damned shampoo ad; the real thing.) The arms of love will open to embrace you if you have tried even a little bit. Hold strong. Anticipate your cherishing welcome.

1. Owen and Mzee are a hippopotamus and an Aldabra giant tortoise, respectively, that attracted media attention after forming an unusual bond of friendship. They live in Haller Park, Bamburi, Kenya. Owen was separated from his herd as a juvenile after Sumatra's December 2004 tsunami and was brought to the Haller Park rescue centre. — Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_and_Mzee>

2. The idea of hell used to bother me, but that fate is self-chosen. It’s not being burned from outside by some torturing god, but the inner burning of a soul confronted with its own hideous acts in a way that cannot be avoided. And even for those beings, Divine Mercy is not impossible.