i say make time to dance alone with one hand waving free.

#40. bradley hathaway's hug poem.

"i read about how You touched them, and they were healed. or even if someone just touched Your cloak, they were forever changed. You let a broken woman bathe Your feet in her tears, and You washed Your best friends’ feet.

i’m just wondering, though, did You ever just hug people? i mean, i know it’s a silly question and all. i’m sure You would have; why wouldn’t You have? but it’s one of those things that was never mentioned, and it got me thinking about it.

and how whenever there was a touch from You, sins were forgiven, and sickness fell. i think i’m caught up with my sins, and, last time i checked, all my body parts were properly working. nothing special here. i’m just a kid with a heavy heart, these passing sunrises and sunsets.

i don’t think our encounter would’ve ended up in Your gospels or anything, because all i really need is a hug. i mean, that’s okay for me to imagine, right? that’s not going to be conflicting with any sort of theology, is it? okay, good. then hug me.

but not one of these ‘sideways, one arm around the neck’ type hugs or the ‘ghetto right hand clasp fist elbows-to-chest pat-pat on the back back’ or the ‘you put your right arm over my right arm and i put my left arm over your left arm and we make this weird sort of diagonal thing.’ nah. none of those.

bear hug me, man.

take Your old-school carpenter arms and throw them around my upper body, leaving my arms dangling underneath Yours somewhere, and i can barely move them because You’re squeezing me so hard. but don’t pick me up and make my back pop, because i hate it when people do that.

and hold me. hold me here in Your arms until i start to cry. because i want to cry, but i just can’t seem to do it on my own. i’ve been teary-eyed once recently, but not even enough for a drip down my cheek. there’s just hurt in my soul that needs to be purged. so hold me in this hugging pose until the pain is flowing from my eyes and nose."

plus #41: the lett family.
and 42: letting go in a painstakingly hard letter to write.