As a side note, the cartoon uses holding hands as an extreme and obvious example of something to NOT do. Whilst there are also other things to also look out for, if you're a church that forces men to hold hands, please stop now.
I once attended a service where the church all held hands for the final song. As a (then) young single man, there is almost no-one it is appropriate to hold hands with for 3 minutes. Definitely not the grandfatherly figure who sat on my left, or the 12-year old girl on my right.
Looking back, I wonder what it was like for married folk. Apart from having your 12-year old daughter hold hands with an unknown man (me) you're holding your spouse with one hand - and someone else's spouse with the other.
No-one benefits from this situation. Except may be the music team. Musicians avoid the awkwardness by playing an instrument. For those 3 minutes they are the envy of all the men in the congregation.
2 comments:
I'm not a man, and I don't like the hand-holding! And what if the person next to you has just sneezed into their hand earlier in the service? Are you excused from hand-holding then? Just as awkward, I once went to a service where we sang repeatedly "walk, walk, walk in the Light of the Lord" and were supposed to walk left to right as we did so. It looked like a penguin shuffle, and as no one knew which way to go or when to change directions, there was lots of bumping and stepping on strangers' feet.
Hehe. That does sound like some entertaining chaos. Thanks Laura.
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