Whatsoever |
Whatsoever |
Hands: How important they are in helping us understand God’s love for us and our response to him. I look at my hands and can see the years imprinted there. I can still feel the slightly swollen joint of the middle finger of my right hand where my pen pressed while answering exam questions. My fingernails are rather lopsided as I used to nibble the side of them when I was a child. My hands are no longer elegant. The fingers seem to be much thicker now and the veins stand out over the thin inelastic skin on the back of each hand. I wear wedding rings: mine and my late husband’s that I can’t bring myself to remove. My hands remind me of the life I have lived. They also challenge me about the potential of the rest of my life. Have you ever tried describing your own hands to yourself? If you dare, try and draw them. It is extremely difficult but if you try, however strange the result, it will make you look at this part of your body very carefully. Hands link with others. Try and bring to mind a particular time when you have held another’s hand. It may be someone very old or very young. It may be a family member or friend. It may be long or fleeting occasion. Capture that image in your mind’s eye and hold the memory for long enough to pray. If you can, find a photo of yourself with another person with your hands linked with theirs. Your could draw or write about this image. You could also try looking carefully at some paintings. Talented artists over the centuries have painted pictures about the Christian faith. The artists, if they were any good, thought carefully about how to depict their subject. It is easier now than ever before to see these images and we can ‘claim’ them for our own as a way of understanding, thinking and praying. You can find paintings in books and very easily on the internet.
Calling hands I get much pleasure from visual art and have discovered several paintings focussing on hands, all made around 500 years ago, that still ‘speak’ so profoundly. They have helped me to visualise truth. A painting that is a special favourite of mine is on the wall of a dark wood panelled building by a remote canal in Venice. It is by Vittore Carpaccio and shows Jesus calling Matthew to be one of his disciples. It is set, as so many paintings were at this time, in the streets of Renaissance Italy rather than first century Palestine: the clothes and buildings are incongruous and potentially distracting. But right in the centre is a marvellous detail. It is of a most tender moment - Christ reaching out his hand to call this worldly-wise tax collector to come and follow him. It shows the love, compassion, understanding and leading of Jesus, calling someone away from everyday demands to follow him. Tiny hands There are many paintings of the nativity. In all of them, there is a very small baby with very small hands. This was what Jesus’s hands were like when God came to be with us. You may have had the privilege of holding a newborn’s hand: it grips tight, you can’t really believe how small the fingernails are and the skin is so smooth, soft, new. Jesus had hands like these. Try searching with the word ‘nativity’ on one of the websites and find an image that helps you to consider the wonder of ‘God with us’ afresh. Suffering hands There are also many depictions of the crucifixion. One of the most harrowing is by Grunewald, part of an extraordinary altarpiece on display in Colmar in France. This shows the terrible agony of Christ’s death with hands pierced by hard sharp nails, through flesh into wood. Here the hands have no power, all control is stripped away and muscles are tortured in agony. These taut, fractured muscles and bones show the meaning of Christ’s words :’ this is my body that is broken for you’. It reminds me of the words ‘hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered’. They are in the middle of a song by Graham Kendrick which honours and expresses praise for Jesus, the servant king. It is an almost unbelievable fact that the hands of God, which created the universe, should have chosen to have the hands of his Son pierced by rusty Roman nails. Open hands Yet that is not the end for ‘Christ is risen, he is risen indeed’. There are fewer resurrection paintings and drawings than one might expect. In many Christ is triumphant. An artist called Bramantino however, painted a most unusual depiction of the risen Christ. It hangs today in a museum in Madrid. Christ stands pale and sombre with his hands outstretched. This moves me greatly: the look on his face, his white body just freed from death, and above all his scarred hands open in a gesture of love. The wounds are still there; there for the world for all time until he returns. The hand of God in the world is a ‘hand that speaks of sacrifice’ God who came and died and is risen still holds the pain of the world. These entirely powerful hands are also so gentle full of care and offering blessing. Ruth Rogers image speaks of this so beautifully, as well as the open hands we need to receive God’s blessing. Praying hands Finally hands can be used to focus our prayers. Praying hands lifted to God was a common way of praying in the early church. On the outskirts of Rome, underground in the Catacombs of Priscilla, there is a painting made in the third century on one of the cave walls. It is of a woman praying with arms extended and palms open and facing upwards. This ancient posture can be a way for us to pray. It may feel strange : a mixture of being exposed and confident. But it may help you focus on God and your precious hands. Psalm 63 expresses this so well. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands I cling to you; your right hand upholds me (Psalm 63:4,8) . This article by Gillian Phillips was originally published in Woman Alive magazine.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
WhatsoeverThe posts are 'postcards' on my journey through faith and art. The name 'Whatsoever' comes from Philippians 4:8 in the Bible : Categories
All
Archives
May 2024
|