The Softer Side of Any Hand

The weakest are strongest. From those who've been given much, much is expected. How can I line up these two thoughts? Well, in the first place, no privileges, advancements, gifts lie within your keep except that they were given to you. Does it make sense to flaunt them like an ornamental cloak? It's not up to you to take pride in your abilities and opportunities as such - if they were given to you they can just as easily be taken away. No - something else comes into the picture which is even more important. Gifts are only half the story - they do not represent strength.

It depends very much on how you turn your hand. The softer side of any hand should be turned towards the open palm of one who asks. For many people the ground quakes beneath their unprotected heels and toes. (This is a story of hands and feet.) Do you notice them on your path of personal advancement? Do you take in the ones who don't have the privileges and opportunities? The gift they offer is an unseen one: they offer you the gift to advance. This strength is invisible.

We are all in positions of weakness or strength at different times in life. The relationship of the open palm and softer side of the hand applies to us all. To continue on your personal path without noticing someone's weakness is to miss an opportunity - the opportunity to give something of your strength and gifts, despite all the complications that might be involved.

I say this because at a certain point you arrive at a gate or a threshold and crave entrance. It might be at the end of life or at some other critical point. And what do you find at this threshold? You find yourself as gatekeeper. How mortifying not to be allowed in by your own self! The gatekeeper - yourself - announces that your privileges, gifts and strengths are as nothing. They are incomplete, they are one side of a coin - unless they are matched by a gift which comes from the weakest: the gift to notice, to help, to offer the soft side of your hand.

In this way the weakest are strongest. From those who've been given much, much is expected. I don't say this as someone who has noticed all his life. Unfortunately not. But neither have I completely walked along in my ornamental cloak. The point is that there is no advancement without taking others along with you. Even if you are alone you have to take others. I'm aware of this door or threshold. I'm alarmed by the shadow of my own self raising a forbidding hand. Have I done enough to go forward? Hmm.

Jay

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