About a year and a half ago, I sat behind this boy in church and was distracted for the duration of the service by his kissy, momma's boy self. It was profoundly disturbing, as I still remember the scene quite vividly: the white laciness of his mother's cardigan, his fingers rubbing her shoulder, the way she tried to shrink ever-so-slightly away from him.
Today in chapel, I sat behind a high school student who was visiting with her parents. What struck me first about these three was their participation in the chapel singing. Usually, prospectives who sit at the back of the chapel are somewhat withdrawn from the overall atmosphere of the service, watching the students and faculty around them trying to gauge their interest with the level of involvement of everyone else.
The daughter, the prospective student, was swaying and clapping, and both of her parents were praising the Lord with their hands in the air. Why is this striking when I've been around Christian circles like this my whole life? Personally, I'm never comfortable enough to join whole-heartedly into any sort of praise and worship scene as a first-timer. A visit to a new church or similar place will rarely find me a strong participant.
When we were seated for the sermon-esque part of the service, the husband put his arm around his wife. It was then, with his hand directly in front of my face, that I realized the mother's and daughter's shoulders were overlapping, despite the fact that they were in two seats separated by an awkwardly placed arm rest. I shifted in my seat a smidge so I could see what was going on, and that's when I realized that a family very dissimilar to my own was sitting in front of me.
The mom had her arm intertwined with her daughter's and her hand rested on the girl's crossed leg. They smiled at each other and whispered back and forth, and I kept thinking -- at 18 my mom was definitely not allowed to touch me. In fact, at 8 I asked my dad to stop holding my hand because it was embarrassing as he walked me to class every day. He refused. Until I was out of the 5th grade, he said. It was tradition. Since I had no choice, I acquiesced, despite my embarrassment and annoyance.
So touching my upper leg? No. NO.
Apparently, the family had recently studied 1 & 2 Chronicles and the really, really minor prophets, because that's what the sermon was about, and they kept exchanging knowing glances and whispers and laughing (at the appropriate Old Testament joke parts).
After one extended whispered dialog between the mom and girl, they shifted and interlaced their fingers. Now, they were holding hands. With interlaced fingers.
Horrified, I tried desperately to refocus on the story of Ahab and Jehoshaphat, Hanni and his son Jehu. But I kept coming back to the image.
Not this:
www.fotosearch.com/FSP468/457015/But this:
www.caribbean-media.info Perhaps I have these random, revolting encounters with strangies because, in reality, I have too many sensitivities. But, in the same way that I am positive it isn't healthy for an 11-year-old boy to be making love to his mother's arm, I know that holding hands with your mother as an 18-year-old girl is best not displayed in a public place.
*images found using Google Images
