Living and Growing: Touch grass … and people, too

Published 10:30 pm Friday, September 26, 2025

“Touch grass.” Up until fairly recently, I had never heard this phrase. But it seems to be growing in popularity, as more and more I see it written and hear people say it. This phrase is used when someone is spending an excessive amount of time on a device like a smartphone or computer. They play video games, read and post on social media, and immerse themselves in online communities to the extent that they begin to lose touch with the real world and all its complexities. To touch grass means to disconnect from the virtual world, go outside, and get out into the real world.

But the grass that needs to be touched isn’t found only in the world of nature; it’s first and foremost the people who inhabit the world. In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk two weeks ago, so much hatred has come to light, not just in the person who has been accused of the murder, but in the responses of many, many people, often posted on social media platforms.

I’m convinced that one of the reasons we are seeing people posting so much vile and hateful things is that we have all become way too insulated from the real world and isolated from each other. It’s far too easy to get worked up over something that one might disagree with, and then, from the distance and perceived safety of a keyboard, post words that call for violence and wish the worst kind of evil on those we think we disagree with. How different it would be if we actually listened to each other and interacted as humans.

We could say that Jesus “touched grass.” As true God from all eternity, some might have viewed him as isolated from the world and the people he had created. But that’s not true, and 2,000 years ago, he proved it in the most extraordinary and shocking way: He became one of those people.

During the 33 years Jesus walked this world, he touched grass and dirt and dust. He also touched people, both figuratively and physically. When approached by a man suffering from the horribly disfiguring and highly contagious disease of leprosy, Jesus reached out his hand, touched the man, and cleansed him. When he encountered a deaf-mute, Jesus put his fingers in the man’s ears, touched his tongue, and healed him. When Peter began to sink beneath the waves of Galilee, Jesus reached out and pulled him up out of the water.

But Jesus did far more than just touch people. He took their sins on himself and went to the cross. Laden with those sins, Jesus touched, not grass, but splintered wood and piercing nails. And there, with his holy blood and last breath, he paid for those sins and won forgiveness for all, even those who crucified him.

As people who have been touched by Jesus’ redeeming grace, we need to do better than lash out at each other with hateful words. We all need to step back from the virtual world and its endless echo chambers, and touch grass and touch people. Listen. Engage. Communicate. Love. And forgive, even as we have been forgiven.

Brent Merten is pastor of Christ Lutheran Church, Juneau, a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.