Spiritual Sunday
I came across a beautiful Advent poem about tortured hands while visiting the wondrous Journey with Jesus website recently. When I think of clenched hands, the last stanza from Blake’s “Grey Monk” comes to mind:
The hand of Vengeance found the bed
To which the Purple Tyrant fled;
The iron hand crush’d the Tyrant’s head
And became a Tyrant in his stead.
Then there is George MacDonald’s Lilith, whose clenched hand works as a metaphor for a barren womb. When she wants to reform, she discovers that she can no longer open it:
“Open thy hand, and let that which is in it go.”
A fierce refusal seemed to struggle for passage, but she kept it prisoned.
“I cannot,” she said. “I have no longer the power. Open it for me.”
She held out the offending hand. It was more a paw than a hand. It seemed to me plain that she could not open it.
Mara did not even look at it.
“You must open it yourself,” she said quietly.
“I have told you I cannot!”
“You can if you will—not indeed at once, but by persistent effort. What you have done, you do not yet wish undone—do not yet intend to undo!”
“You think so, I dare say,” rejoined the princess with a flash of insolence, “but I KNOW that I cannot open my hand!”
In a particularly unsettling image, Adam must cut off her hand for her to find peace and for water to flow again in the spiritual wasteland:
In a few minutes Adam returned with an ancient weapon in his hand. The scabbard looked like vellum grown dark with years, but the hilt shone like gold that nothing could tarnish. He drew out the blade. It flashed like a pale blue northern streamer, and the light of it made the princess open her eyes. She saw the sword, shuddered, and held out her hand. Adam took it. The sword gleamed once, there was one little gush of blood, and he laid the severed hand in Mara’s lap.
Whew, talk about coming not with peace but with a sword! MacDonald was a hard-line Calvinist and it shows up in his imagery. We’re assured, however, that Lilith isn’t hurt and the protagonist uses her severed hand to go find soul-sustaining water.
Alder’s image isn’t quite so horrific but the idea is the same. If you find yourself clenching a lot these days, listen to what her poem is telling you:
Advent Hands
By Catherine Alder
I see the hands of Joseph.
Back and forth along bare wood they move.
There is worry in those working hands,
sorting out confusing thoughts with every stroke.
“How can this be, my beautiful Mary now with child?”
Rough with deep splinters, these hands,
small, painful splinters like tiny crosses
embedded deeply in this choice to stay with her.
He could have closed his hands to her,
said, “No” and let her go to stoning.
But, dear Joseph opened both his heart and hands
to this mother and her child.
Preparing in these days before
with working hands
and wood pressed tight between them.
It is these rough hands that will open
and be the first to hold the Child.
I see the hands of John,
worn from desert raging storms
and plucking locusts from sand ripped rocks
beneath the remnant of a Bethlehem star.
A howling wind like some lost wolf
cries out beneath the moon,
or was that John?
This loneliness,
enough to make a grown man mad.
He’s waiting for this, God’s whisper.
“Go now. He is coming.
You have prepared your hands enough.
Go. He needs your servant hands,
your cupping hands to lift the water,
and place his feet upon the path to service and to death.
Go now, John, and open your hands to him.
It is time.”
I see a fist held tight and fingers blanched to white.
Prying is no easy task.
These fingers find a way of pulling back to old positions,
protecting all that was and is.
Blanched to white. No openness. All fright.
But then the Spirit comes.
A holy Christmas dance begins
and blows between the twisted paths.
This fist opens
slowly,
gently,
beautifully,
the twisted fingers letting go.
Their rock-solid place in line has eased.
And one by one the fingers lift
True color is returned
And through the deepest of mysteries,
The holiest of holies,
O longing of longings
Beyond all human imagining
this fist,
as if awakened from Lazarus’ cold stone dream
reaches out to hold the tiny newborn hand of God.