Swine flu season: should churches ban the handshake?
It seems to me that some exposure is unavoidable. As many things as we do now to avoid germ spreading (hand sanitizer, automatic sinks and air dryers in public restrooms, proper cough covering education, etc etc), people seems to get as sick about as often as they ever did in the “olden days” when we all used paper towels, bar soap, and faucet handles and the like. I’m sure someone can provide me with statistics to the contrary, and please, feel free. That being said, I think some people get way too anxious about these things, and want to do everything they can to put matters under their own control. I will not be avoiding handshaking (though I won’t be increasing full body hugs out of spite, either :-) ). I will continue to wash my hands (just like mom taught me to), but I am unlikely to carry portable Purell. If I get a cold or the flu, so be it. Won’t be the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last, either.
Greg Linscott
Marshall, MN
Viruses are on probably everything we touch. We go to church and put our hand on the entrance door. If you visit the restroom, you put your hand on the door pull there. Just walking from my office to my car as I left work today, I touched 4 door pulls and several elevator buttons. The key is to keep one’s unwashed hands away from one’s face. I wash my hands after I get home from church.
during the flu seasons, HSBC borrows the Japanese custom of bowing to each other. We call it the Japanese handshake.
Hoping to shed more light than heat..
If your church is really worried about it, I would suggest bringing someone in to talk about it for 10-15 minutes and the need to properly wash your hands (yes, most people do not know how to properly wash their hands) and how to couch. And then on subsequent sundays put a note in the bulletin, and every few sundays make a remark in the announcements. At work, all of IS sat through a 30 minutes meeting where a doctor went through all this.
My church does alot of handshaking. I am an ER nurse exposed to a million and half germs a shift. Worse all I am a Pediatric ER Nurse which means I get the constant kids coughing in my face germs because most parents have no common sense to teach their kids to cover their mouth or nose. Their kids don’t have germs, that is why I see them all the time, they are frequent flyers. Anyway, I suggest if your church is concern about handshaking, that each family brings in a small bottle of hand sanitizer. They can discreetly use this without taking offense, and still be friendly and greet others, especially visitors.
I am just thankful that we don’t drink after each other during communion, (share the cup) or kiss each other. Sometimes be a stuck up Yankee has it’s advantages, LOL
I am just thankful that we don’t drink after each other during communion, (share the cup) or kiss each other. Sometimes be a stuck up Yankee has it’s advantages, LOL
God is good
We just have a bottle of hand sanitizer on the welcome table in the foyer. ;)
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