HANDS [M, 5-15-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—HANDS [M, 5-15-23]

 

I am cooking again, sort of. Which seems a little unnecessary, since I am married to a great cook. But… well, it was her idea first.

Several years ago, when we still lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Helen said that I needed to learn to cook. If she died first, I would need to cook for myself. If she got disabled, she would want to eat.

So I started cooking one day a week. Learned to do meatloaf and mac & choose. Casseroles. Basic meals. But that sort of got lost when we moved to Bloomington. We just slid back to the old pattern, to our natural abilities, with her cooking and me doing the dishes.

We’re not getting any younger now. In fact, living in Bloomington has been very hard on us. We’re becoming “puny and feeble,” as they used to mark next to old folks in the Solsberry Methodist membership book, so their nineteen-year-old preacher would know who to call on before it was too late.

So I was shaping a meatloaf the other day. Concentrating. Staying in the moment. Using my current mantra, “Trust the moment; it contains everything you need.” Using my hands…

It reminded me of when grandson Joe was about four years old. His mother noticed a cut on one of his hands. “Joe, what happened to your hand?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he answered, a big indignantly. “I can’t watch it every minute.”

When you’re young, your hands are so busy. There are so many jobs for them. You can’t watch them all the time.

When you’re old, you have time to watch your hands. It’s rewarding; hands are quite fascinating. Also, you need to, because it’s easy for old brains to forget what old hands are supposed to be doing.

The first sermon I remembered was by Paul Byrnes, the postmaster at Oakland City, IN. He was a Methodist lay preacher and filled in at Forsythe, my little open-country church, from time to time, whenever needed. I was probably twelve or thirteen. Paul preached on hands. He talked about how different Bible characters used their hands, how people brought offerings to the temple in their hands, how Jesus used his hands to heal, what various folks brought to God in their hands.  I remember most how he ended, by saying: “What do you bring in your hands?”

Ever since, I have thought about the importance of hands in trying to live successfully, in living a Christian life. They’re so important that Jesus said it would be better to cut one off than to misuse it. [Matthew 5:30.]

Many years later, when he was not young, I asked Paul Byrnes to come be the associate pastor where I was preaching. He had just gotten divorced. You didn’t do that, in my home town--especially as an old person, especially as a preacher--and be very acceptable to folks. I thought he might like a change of place. I knew he would bring something useful in his hands.

He thanked me, but declined. “I did think I would need to leave town,” he wrote, “but when you asked me to work with you, I realized that I didn’t have to move away, because that boy who used to listen to me preach thought I could still be useful. If you know you’re accepted, you can live anyplace.”

John Robert McFarland