Getting a Hand Up at Christmas

Getting back to the Celtic roots that generates the impetus for this blog I share with you an incident in the life of the Celtic saint Brendan. He is the one called the Navigator, a sixth century monk who spends most of his life in a small boat made of leather and wicker and called a coracle. Brendan believed that God had sent him on a mission to an earthly paradise similar to the one God had given to Adam and to Eve, and though he sailed into and out of many ports,he never found his Eden. Near the end of his life, around 580 A.D., he meets up with a Welsh monk named Gildis and they talk into the wee hours of the morning. At the end of the conversation, Gildis stands up, and for the first time, Brendan sees that Gildis has only one leg.  The other was gone from the knee down.  He was hopping sideways to reach for his stick in the corner when he lost his balance.  He would have fallen in a heap had not Brendan lept forward and caught him.  In gratitude, Gildis nodded at Brendan, and said, “I am as crippled as the dark world.” To which Brendan replied, “If it come to that, which of us is not, my dear Gildis?” And the truth that Brendan offers next transcends both calendar and culture, for his words to Gildis are these: “to give each other a hand when we are falling, is perhaps the only work that matters in the end.”


During my sojourn out in California and Nevada, I invited Ann Weems to come to Zephyr Point Conference Center on Lake Tahoe and facilitate a retreat for pastors in Sacramento Presbytery. Over the course of working out the details, setting the agenda, etc., Ann and I developed quite a relationship, and there will be more about what when on at that retreat in a later posting, but for now, I share with you one of her poems from her book Kneeling In Bethlehem:

                   Some of us walk into Advent tethered to our unresolved yesterdays.

                   The pain is still stabbing.  The hurt is still throbbing.

                   It is not that we don't know better.  It is just that we

                   Cannot stand up any more by ourselves.  On the way to Bethlehem,

                   Will you give us a hand?

        

         One of the images of God we often see in medieval stained glass windows is that of a hand descending from the clouds of heaven. Is it too hard to imagine that “hand” becoming a child who becomes a man who stretches out his hand to steady us when we are falling? And if God in Christ can do that for us, perhaps it is not too great  a stretch to imagine that this is what he wants us to do for each other.  That we give a hand in order to keep someone else from falling. That maybe someone we barely know, and yet we know enough that someone's hand is needed to help steady this person for whatever lies ahead. Or that someone could be a person whom we know quite well - a spouse, a parent, a child. And we become aware that a hand reaches out across a room and draws the other closer, a hand that reaches across a sofa to connect with another to say, “I’m sorry. Please take me back. I do not want to fall any further.”

When I was working in Northern Ireland in the summer of 2006, at a place called Corrymeela, I encountered another image of the Hand of God. Corrymeela is a retreat center for groups working on reconciliation issues.  In part, it deals with the issues of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, but it also works with issues in families to effect reconciliation. In the chapel at this retreat center is this charcoal drawing. I found it haunting then, and I find it haunting still.  The hand of who – a child, a man, a woman? – falling physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally? And who is it that holds on to the hand that appears to be reaching out for something, or someone, upon which to hold on to – is it God, is it you, is it me?

Over the next twelve days (Christmastide), we will be giving – and receiving – gifts.  What greater gift can we give or can we receive than a hand that lifts us up; than a hand that lifts someone else up and keeps them from falling any further. God offered that hand to a world that had fallen into the depths of sin, and a world that continues to fall; a hand that keeps us from falling outside the pale of his grace. It is this image of God, incarnate in the Christ, which I envision whenever I hear Josh Gorban sing “You Raise Me Up.” With the orchestra behind him, the lyrics soar to a crescendo, and then, almost in a whisper, Gorban sings: “…You raise me up to be more than I can be.”

In this Christmastide, do you need to receive the gift of a hand up to keep you from falling further into whatever darkness may be swirling around you? Can God work his grace through someone else that you may be raised to a greater self-understanding? Or do you perhaps need to give the gift of a hand up to someone whom you know is falling and does not need to fall any further, that they might rise above the waves of self-doubt that are consuming them?  Can you think of a better gift that you might give … that you might receive … at this time of year?


Jerry