Open hands...
An open hand can
symbolize many, many things. Held simply open it can mean, as with the bird,
that I have something to give; or if it’s empty and held forward, it can also say,
“I have need.” Upheld alone and facing forward it can be a simple
acknowledgement of hello or goodbye, formal or informal, enthusiastic or
reticent. Upheld with the other hand it can be a figurative or literal sign of
resignation or surrender, “I give up,” a show that my hand hides nothing that
can threaten the one to whom the signal is made. Angled at my side, palms
forward, it is a beckoning gesture, a motion that can mean welcome, come
nearer, stand by me. Yet waving forward from the elbows it says go away. Palms
down it says, “I’m finished, I’m staying put,” or that things have settled.
Held high overhead it symbolizes the desire to be chosen, noticed, “Teacher,
pick me!” Held palms up at shoulder height it says I don’t know, I’m confused.
Such variability
from a simple open hand gesture, sometimes even contradictory! Hello or goodbye. Come
or go. I’m staying or I’m coming. I have need or I have excess. I’m settled or
I’m confused. I know or I don’t know. And that’s just gestures using an open
hand! It’s a pretty
diverse appendage.
I hold an open
hand outstretched toward God in prayer, hopeful God's presence will light and
receive what I have to offer. What is the meaning of my gesture? Is it an offering? A symbol of resignation or surrender?
Of confusion or of being settled? Of openness to receive? A welcome? A
beckoning that the Object of my prayer advance, that He come nearer? A desire
to be chosen? All of these? Especially in times such as our country and
church are experiencing now?
We never thought of our
hands
as being empty so much as
caught in the act of
receiving…
A friend sent me a poem once about a man who had grown up poor, but somehow still provided
for, who had lived a simple and unpretentious life. “We had so little,” he
said, “that there was no point in our asking God to protect what was ours. We
had life and limb, friends and kin, time for play and work. It was enough.”
The poem ended
with these lines: “We prayed with our hands open and turned toward heaven. We never thought
of them as being empty so much as caught
in the act of receiving.”
It’s a lovely
image. And perhaps made especially so since the image is of an open hand and not a clenched one...
Lord, let my open
hands before You be ones that have something to offer, to You and to others, in
these critical times. And let me never, ever see them as empty, only caught in
the act of receiving. Amen.
~~RGM, adapted from an old entry in my nature
journal, after a morning on the beach at Hobe
Sound National Wildlife Refuge near Jupiter, FL
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