Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is in our midst.
Here are a few pairs of compassionate hands I came across in my neighbourhood the last couple of days.
If Hands Could Free You, Heart
Where would you fly?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate? Would you cross
City and hill and sea,
If hands could set you free?
I would not lift the latch;
For I could run
Through fields, pit-valleys, catch
All beauty under the sun—
Still end in loss:
I should find no bent arm, no bed
To rest my head.
“An aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress.” William Butler Yeats
“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” Martin Luther
Hands
Inside a cave in a narrow canyon near Tassajara
The vault of rock is painted with hands,
A multitude of hands in the twilight, a cloud of men’s palms, no more,
No other picture. There’s no one to say
Whether the brown shy quiet people who are dead intended
Religion or magic, or made their tracings
In the idleness of art; but over the division of years these careful
Signs-manual are now like a sealed message
Saying: “Look: we also were human; we had hands, not paws. All hail
You people with the cleverer hands, our supplanters
In the beautiful country; enjoy her a season, her beauty, and come down
And be supplanted; for you also are human.”
By Robinson Jeffers
Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of Hands) in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, famous for (and gets its name from) the paintings of hands. The art in the cave dates from 13,000 to 9,000 years ago.
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN FAITH AND LIFE 
I didn’t know about the hands art – it is wonderful! And Jeffers’s poem is new to me, too. Thank you!! May God grant you strength through Holy Week and bring you joyful to Pascha!
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Thank you. We all need strength and peace through Holy Week as it is fraught with temptations and distractions.
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