This week... "Lord, Open My Hands"
"Open my hands".
I've been thinking and reading about "Open Hands" for a few days now, and I've been struck by the whole idea of what they might represent, particularly when it comes to living life. I've even heard of Open-Handed living as a kind of philosophy of life. Living and Open-handed Life...
What would that look like? I think we're more familiar with it's opposite - a closed-handed life. A closed-handed life might be characterized by fear - fear of the "other" fear of those that are different from us, fear of what they could bring, or do. Or fear of the next dreaded disease. Or fear of the next shoe dropping - you know, that voice in the head that says "Don't enjoy it too much... it'll end soon enough!" Or "You'll just lose this too, so why bother!" There's the fear of getting hurt - the pain of feeling loss, of losing something that we'd notice would mean a lot to us... but we don't want to get too close anymore for fear of losing it. The fears can seem endless.
If we look carefully, we can see the foot-print of "fears" all around us; in how we raise our kids, in our politics, in our thoughts about others that are different from us, in what we say about God and what God wants from us, in the evening news.
Anxiety is Fear's partner... they usually walk hand-in-hand. The worry that the fears bring... worries ratcheted up to Olympic levels... worries carried, not for a moment, or little while, but constantly. Anxieties are worries that accompany us everywhere we go, like a horrible sound-track to our lives, until they become part of us. And these anxieties really do have an effect on us; our thinking, our living, our expressions, our beliefs... our bodies.
Closed-handed living. Regrets. Unresolved guilt. A sense of unworthiness. and what else? Issues of forgiveness. There's more of course... I'm sure we could think of more to add to this list. Any combination of which can cause us to clench-up. We shrink within, close ourselves off, board up the windows, wall off the rooms of our lives. We close our hands. Closed-handed Living.
Open-handed Living sounds so freeing! "All you have to do is open your hands!" It's not so easy for some to just "let go". But still... maybe it is about letting go. About letting go of the consequences of our fears. What would happen if... we met those people? If... things changed, the way we've been secretly dreaming about? If... we looked our fears squarely in the eyes, and asked them "What are you made of?" If... we rode the anxiety train to the end of the line, we'd probably realize our big fears are what people will think of us... but we can't ever control that anyway.
A closed hand seems to be in control! Maybe we think if we live a closed-handed life, we'll have more control of those parts of our lives we just don't seem to have that much control over.
Oh how scary an open hand can really be!
Well, not this one... they're the hands of a kid! So, not scary!
Not too scary either... doesn't look like they could really hurt us. Plus, we'd still be in control.
Yikes! Imagine that hand reaching out to you... Urgency. Confidence. Strength. Grab that hand, and it looks like you probably will lose control! Something is going to happen!
Open hands can do stuff...
Reach out grab hold reassure
Oh Lord, what does it take to open hands?
Oh Lord, what does it take to open a life?
What does an Open Life look like?
"Freedom from having to control"
"Wonderful"
"Hopeful"
"I don't have to feel like I'm in charge of everything"
"A delight"
"A ray of sunshine on a cloudy day!"
"It okay to be scared but my fear isn't in charge"
"Gratitude"
"I'll be okay after all!"
Lord, Open my Hands....
1 comment:
Very timely and insightful.
Post a Comment