Beth's Ponderings
Hold out your hand in front of you and take a really good look at it. The back, as well as the palm, all your fingers and your wrist.
Now, if you are like most people, your first thoughts, or impressions, as you did that were not about the “appearance” of your hand, but rather how it feels “internally.”
Maybe your hand is sore from typing too much, or maybe you have arthritis and the changing season has been doing a real number on your joints, or maybe you notice your finger is sore from a too-tight ring. Maybe your hand is cold, or conversely hot.
Only after we get through our thoughts on how our hand feels, do we start to see it. Which leads to another whole set of judgements. Maybe your fingers are nicked and cut, maybe you are missing a finger, maybe you notice some blisters on your palm, or a blemish.
Were any of your thoughts about thanking your hands? Really, hands are fascinating in what they are capable of doing. In fact, very rarely are they entirely still during the course of the day as they pick up, put down, touch, push, pull, squeeze, hold, let go, and so much more. Hands are capable not only of holding heavy objects, but light ones too. They can be incredibly gentle or harsh.
We’re told not to judge a book by its cover, yet we all do, and we can’t help it as we judge absolutely everything around us. That is because we live, and view, our lives from the inside. Even when we look in a mirror, or at our hand, we don’t see ourselves as others do, but as we “feel” inside.
However, when we look out, all we see is the “cover” of whatever, or whomever, is around us. We experience our “content” and thus assume that the covers we see are in fact others’ content, but they aren’t.
Recently I took a short video of my niece jumping in our compost bin to compact the contents, and I was also in the video as I was holding her hands. It was interesting to watch the video and “see” myself in a manner that I never get to see. For a brief moment I was able to blend my “cover” and my “content” to get a new sense of who I am.
Just as a book is more than its cover, so is everything around us.
Beth
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