Space

Today, I'm going to write about something that has been bugging me for a quite a while.  I realize it's going to be a bit controversial, and that I'll probably get jumped all over for it, but I'm going to say it anyway.  It's a question I've been asking myself for years. 

What is it about being in church that gives people the idea that they have the right to violate your personal space?  Why is it that the minute you walk into a church, people think they have the right to just run up and start putting their hands all over you? 

I spend 8 hours a day (more or less) at work, and people don't put their hands on me like they do at church. 

I go to Wal-mart, and random people don't run up and start grabbing and pawing at me like they do at church.

I go to the Downtown Jubilee, or Balloons Over Grenada, or the Memphis Zoo and nobody tries to tickle or pinch, or stroke, or fondle or grope me like they do at church.  OK, well, that's just the one disgusting creep, but still...

I can't stand it.  I don't even like it when people I like touch me.  I certainly don't like it when random people I barely know and certainly don't like -- I know, I know, how un-Christlike of me-- pat and stroke and drape themselves all over me. 

But if I were to stand up and scream "KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!!!!!", then I would be considered the bad guy.  So I have to sit there and just take it.  I plaster a fake smile on my face, and grit my teeth and put up with it even though inwardly I am seething. 

I go home with my skin crawling, and feeling like I've been molested, and I skip church a lot.

And I hate that what should be the highlight of my week has become the thing I dread the most. 

I know that the more outgoing, touchy-feely types among you will not understand why I feel this way.  But I do.  Now, if you will excuse me, I must go prepare to be lambasted.