As Thanksgiving approaches, there is so much in life for which to be thankful. Sometimes it is harder to see those things. As we become busy with work, family, friends and just daily survival - we can miss the miracles that surround us every second of the day. My prayer for the world is that we all find a way to slow down, to look around, to let go of things that are holding us down, or are simply just not important, and that we take time, no, MAKE time, to do those things that are important. We need to do the things that feed our passions and our souls.
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I had a vision today of a man. Perhaps he was you, or maybe he was me. This man walked around with his left hand balled up into a fist. He was not an angry man and he wasn't attempting to express discontent with a particular person or thing. In fact, he was quite a peaceful man; sort of quiet and even a little sad.
The man's left hand was balled up because he was holding a fistful of sand. He didn't even notice it much anymore, except when he felt some of the sand working through his fingers and spilling out. It had become second nature to him, to hold onto the sand with all his might. So while he was rather laid back and relaxed in most aspects of his demeanor and lifestyle - his left hand and arm had become rigid and stiff. The veins protruding under the bronzed skin covering muscle, sinew and bone.
From his youth, he remembered that day on the beach so clearly. The old woman, who reminded him of a gypsy fortune-teller, had told him to thrust his hand deep into the sand and grab a big handful of the slippery stuff. She told him to hold onto it and never let go. She explained that those grains of sand, each little one, represented a piece of him - and that losing even one grain could result in the loss of something too important to do without.
This had a tremendous impact on his boy-mind - and he worried about his future. He asked the old woman how he would be able to go through life without the use of his left hand. The old woman told him that the sacrifice of his left hand was insignificant compared to the control he now had on his life and his future. She told him that his left hand now held all the power he would ever need to be successful at business, at love and at life in general. She warned the boy that if he were to give up and drop the sand - he would be forever cursed and doomed to failure and even to the point of death. Then she walked away and eventually disappeared on the horizon.
While the boy had been impressionable and intimidated by the prospect of death, with age that intimidation had become determination. Very soon the boy learned to do things using only his right hand. As his dexterity improved, his confidence grew and he felt better and better about himself. The only time that really concerned him was at night, when his body relaxed and he worried about loosening his grip and losing the sand while he slept. So he had devised a contraption of cloth and rubber bands that he placed on his hand each night to assure that his hand would stay tight. Over time, even this became unnecessary as his body learned not to relax his left hand.
As years went by, from time to time a few of the smaller grains of sand would shift and work their way through the cracks in his fist and fall out. At these times the man would panic. He would begin to imagine that his sight would go, or that his kidneys would cease to function. Perhaps he would lose his job or his dog would run away. These panics would be so debilitating that it would take days, sometimes even weeks for him to fully recover, and only after realizing that those particular grains of sand must have represented something minor. Perhaps it was the reason his hair was thinning.
Every now and then - he would begin to sense a deep aching in his left hand. It started out as a minor pain, but soon would work up into a vicious throbbing that radiated from his hand with the pain and heat of a wild fire. The first time this happened - he went to the doctor, desperate for some painkillers. After the doctor called him into the examination room - the man explained about the pain and about the sand in his hand. The doctor looked at him dumbfounded and told him the only thing he needed to do was to let go of the sand. The doctor then started to explain the physiological implications of holding his hand closed so tightly, but was interrupted by the man who, without allowing further explanation, began hurling insults at the doctor and then ran from the examination room, never slowing down until he was safely home. Tears were streaming down his face, but he didn't understand why.
Then suddenly the man in my vision looked up at the mirror in his foyer and saw me. He asked me if I was a vision or a reflection and I told him I was no longer sure. I noticed that the front of my shirt was tear-soaked as well. Then I asked the man to show me his left hand. He held up his fist to the mirror, knowing that I could not touch it. I asked him to show me what was inside of his balled fingers. He withdrew slightly and said that he could not, because if he opened his hand, he would die. I looked into his wet, tired eyes and said three simple words; “It’s just sand”.
Suddenly the man’s mind reeled with images of all the things he had given up as a child, as a young man and as an adult in order to hold tightly to his sand. He remembered the playground where he watched the other kids swing as he stood by gripping his treasure. He remembered the awkward high-school years when he wanted to play baseball and football but settled for being a fan on the sidelines – enduring the taunts of others who called him the “sandman”. He remembered the warm brown eyes of the one woman who ever took the time to talk to him, and who encouraged him to know her better by opening his heart, and his hand to take hers. The salt of new tears blurred these images and burned his face as he realized what a fool he had been. How the old woman at the beach had tricked him and how he had been so gullible. And yet, even in the midst of this revelation – his hand stayed shut like an iron cage.
Defeated, he looked back at the mirror and into my eyes. Desperately he asked – “what can I do?”
Looking back at him, I said that his hand had been closed for many, many years, and that he could not expect to simply open it wide at once. I explained that he needed to go slowly, and break old habits by consciously willing his hand to open. I told him it might take days, months or even years for him to regain full dexterity in his hand, but that the first step was to make the decision to let go. Let the sand fall free. Take the twisted, gnarled hand and treat it with warmth and with love and eventually it would return to him with the usefulness God intended.
As the vision began to fade from me – I thought I saw the man smile, but his head dropped down and I couldn’t be sure. I followed his gaze to the floor to see what he was staring at and there it was; a small,
but growing,
...pile of sand.
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Peace, love and thanks to all of you!
WOOF ya later!
- bbw
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