The Real Thing by Dr. Juan Harrison

The Real Thing
Something reminded me of my time in Europe when I stood outside a fence there at a German orphanage. The young face staring through the bars told me all I needed to know without a translator. I’ve mentioned before about the high death rate of German babies in orphanages where they received little human touch and minimal care during the war. The critical element was a lack of emotional connection.
I’m reminded of the punishment in civilian and military prisons called solitary confinement. Sometimes it’s for protection, but more often it’s designed as a more severe penalty to deprive prisoners of human contact.
Marriages and families often suffer from a lack of human contact and care. Sometimes it’s intentional with spouses not speaking or touching or making eye contact as they pass in the hall or cling to mattress cords on their side of the bed. Sometimes families are too busy with little family time to talk and reconnect. Sometimes couples drift apart and divorce as they become strangers. Often as the marriage breaks up children suffer silently. Frequently you see kids begin to pay the price as they look to things and people outside the home for acceptance and security. No one should underestimate the value of a family unit where a child feels safe, accepted, and secure.
Sometimes things happen in a society where people become more physically and emotionally separated than ever. No matter how well intended or reasonable some actions may seem, they often have severe unintended consequences.
In recent years our world has undergone some physical restrictions of movement and communication, from nursing homes to schools. Correspondingly we’ve seen a rise in suicide and criminal behavior. Loneliness and a lack of human and eye contact and regular involvement at work, school, or socially seems to have had some dire consequences. Even lack of physical contact in our churches seems to support the Biblical admonition to forsake not the gathering together of ourselves. Widows and widowers can attest to the value of human contact as God said it was not good for mankind to live alone.
As we live our lives with restrictions on movement and often hidden faces, we can feel a great frustration over time. As people live their lives in greater isolation by means of cell phones and social media, they’re losing times of physical and emotional connections with actual humans. Sweet and Low is good; real sugar cane sugar is hard to beat.
By Dr. Juan Harrison