Some folks kid me about not liking to hug. It's not (altogether) true. I do like to hug - just not people whom I don't know and want to hug me because they have some sort of agenda.
I used to know an usher who tried to hug every woman who entered the church. Not cool!
During the 80s the Charismatic Movement abounded in several denominations, including United Methodist. A couple of times, when I went to the United Methodist Retreat Center to lead some other group, these charismatic groups would commandeer every entrance to the dining room and force us regular Methodists into bear hugs before we could enter. Not cool!
While I've traditionally been a person who's tried to help break down all kinds of barriers, sometimes, walls, whether literal or metaphorical, are good things.
In the wonderful Robert Frost poem called "The Mending Wall," he deals with this very subject. In the poem, he and his next door neighbor are undertaking their annual task of mending the stone wall between their properties. They have to do this after hunting season because the hunters always damage the wall. But Frost has ambivalent feelings. He starts out saying:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall.
But his neighbor replies,
Good fences make good neighbors.
Frost goes on to say that it's not like they have livestock (cows) to protect. "My apple trees will never get across..." But his friend again replies,
Good fences make good neighbors.
Walls, literal or metaphorical, protect. But they also divide. It's a trick sometimes trying to figure out how far to get into another guy's space. It's true with countries and well as lovers. Believe me, I know. I like to discuss everything. Immediately.
But, like Mr. Frost, I need to be sensitive about who I'm walling in and who I'm walling out.
***
I used to know an usher who tried to hug every woman who entered the church. Not cool!
During the 80s the Charismatic Movement abounded in several denominations, including United Methodist. A couple of times, when I went to the United Methodist Retreat Center to lead some other group, these charismatic groups would commandeer every entrance to the dining room and force us regular Methodists into bear hugs before we could enter. Not cool!
While I've traditionally been a person who's tried to help break down all kinds of barriers, sometimes, walls, whether literal or metaphorical, are good things.
In the wonderful Robert Frost poem called "The Mending Wall," he deals with this very subject. In the poem, he and his next door neighbor are undertaking their annual task of mending the stone wall between their properties. They have to do this after hunting season because the hunters always damage the wall. But Frost has ambivalent feelings. He starts out saying:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall.
But his neighbor replies,
Good fences make good neighbors.
Frost goes on to say that it's not like they have livestock (cows) to protect. "My apple trees will never get across..." But his friend again replies,
Good fences make good neighbors.
Walls, literal or metaphorical, protect. But they also divide. It's a trick sometimes trying to figure out how far to get into another guy's space. It's true with countries and well as lovers. Believe me, I know. I like to discuss everything. Immediately.
But, like Mr. Frost, I need to be sensitive about who I'm walling in and who I'm walling out.
***
