Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Pearlfleur Passport: Hand Signals

Hands can tell us a lot about a person. Stop and look at your hands for a minute. Do they tell your story the way you want it to be told? When you think about it, our hands are the part of our own bodies that we see the most. Other people see our face, but (unless you are looking in a mirror all day) we don’t see much of our face or our hair or other parts of our body. But we see our hands all the time.

We use our hands to express ourselves to others when words may not be enough. Our hands can signal "yes" or "no. " We extend a hand when we greet others with a handshake and when we say goodbye with a wave. And, of course we all know that universal hand signal that some folks just can't seem to do without when they are driving.

Our hands send signals even when they are not really doing anything, just gently laying in our laps. I remember being in church one day and observing my best friend’s hands. Although the choir sounded like angels and others in the church were listening as they should, I was looking at my friend’s hands. At that moment, those hands said more than any sermon I have ever heard.

They told of the gentle person they were attached to, of the garden they had just pruned the day before, of the many students’ papers they had graded during the past week. They told of the meal they had prepared for an elderly neighbor, of the stress of the divorce papers just signed, of their applause at the elementary school play. Those hands signaled the joys, the burdens, and the love they had experienced and shared in the past. I told my friend how beautiful I thought her hands were. She laughed and said, "Oh, not these hands with a crooked finger and liver spots!"
Yes indeed, my friend, those very hands.

People can have lifts, tucks and injections, but their hands remain true.
We get to watch our hands each day as they tell our story. We need to care for them, as they are telling others about who we are and what we are made of.

Please leave a comment and tell us what you think about hand signals. Is there someone whose hands you think tell an important story. What do your hands say about you?

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hi
this is bailey. i am a pocket mouse.
i am looking at my paws.
i think they are very nice.
i wish they were not so short, because it is hard for me to type and press the shift key at the same time.
so all my letters have to be lower case.

when people are asleep, i love to type, type, type.

bye for now,
bailey
<:3 )~~~

2 comments:

Ruthie said...

I remember my grandpa's hands - wrinkled and crooked from having endured a stroke. They held such strength and stories of a life full of hard work, deep love of a large family and a life changing faith. They were gentle and loving, encircling me with big hugs. I miss those hands even after all these years.

Anonymous said...

Hands do indeed tell a story. What a wonderul way to describe a part of your body that you normally do not think of or pay attention to. I can't wait for your next segment.