– Aprina Johnson – Aprina’s Revolutionary Love- Musical Communal Activist & MORTAR Entrepreneur
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I listened as Aprina told her story and explained the educational arts workshops that she offers. She’s teaching children and adults to be more sensitive in communicating and living together. She believes art, dance and music are vehicles to reconciliation and understanding. As tensions across the country grow, this kind of unconventional approach could do much to transform our communities. Aprina said she wanted people to become more tactile, which gave me pause. TACTILE means of or connected with the sense of touch. Figuratively, it means given to touching others, especially as an unselfconscious expression of sympathy or affection. The root word TACT means adroitness and sensitivity in dealing with others or with difficult issues. Oh, that we would all be more tactile in this season!
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Most of us are aware of the healing power of touch to convey comfort, calm anxiety and impart love. Jesus proclaimed that healing virtue went from him when the woman with the issue of blood reached forth her hand to touch him. (Luke 8:46) When the leprous man, who was labeled unclean and forbidden to be touched, said, “If you’re willing, you can make me clean,” Jesus didn’t just give him the words “I will, be thou clean.” He also erased any sense of rejection or isolation associated with his condition by stretching out his hand to touch him. (Mark 1:41-42) Jesus declared that signs and wonders would follow His disciples, that they would lay hands on the sick and they will recover. (Mark 16:17-18) Touch is important to God. Even in marriage, Christian counselors Gary Smalley and John Trent wrote in, “Love is a Decision,” that wives require 8-10 meaningful non-sexual touches a day to stay emotionally healthy.
Beyond physical touch is the connection we find when we mentally, emotionally and spiritually touch the life of someone else. The tactile person is sensitive. They display a delicate appreciation of the
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other person’s feelings, and are able to respond properly and wisely to slight changes, signals or influences. It is a wonderful experience when another person makes every attempt to ‘get us,’ to empathize with what we’re going through and be willing to respond. We have no greater example than Jesus, our High Priest, who is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” (Hebrews 4:15) Christ gets us. He understands our weaknesses and His love meets us at the point of our need. Let’s explore how we can be more tactile with others.
16 DAYS AWAY!! 
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