MAY YOU BE IN GOOD HANDS
I have lost my grip—happily so. Last night, I shook the hands of over 700 new Furman graduates as they crossed the stage to grasp in their own hands a hard-earned diploma. My hands are still sore from the ceremony and the impromptu gatherings thereafter. Yet my aching palms tingle with warm memories. Holding on. Letting go. That is what commencement ceremonies celebrate and represent. And it is not accidental that we use our hands to express such profound sentiments. Hands signify important beginnings and endings. We are born with clenched fists needing everything done for us, yet we die with open hands leaving everything behind. In this context our hands become metaphors for our very humanness. A good life involves progressing beyond an infantile preoccupation with selfish needs (clenched hands) to a mature selflessness that enables us to leave this world with open and giving hands. Holding on. Letting go. We often take our hands for granted, but they constitute one of the remarkable features that separate human beings from animals. Only the human thumb is long enough and flexible enough to touch all the other finger tips. Sir Isaac Newton once said that the human thumb alone was sufficient proof of God’s existence. Hands are miraculous instruments that combine the creative with the mundane. In 1833 Sir Charles Bell, a preeminent Scottish anatomist, noted that the “human hand is so beautifully formed, its actions are so powerful, so free and yet so delicate that there is no thought of its complexity as an instrument; we use it as we draw our breath, unconsciously.” Hands handle silverware, build walls, plant gardens, pull triggers, write poems, sculpt statues, manipulate keyboards, and perform delicate surgery. Aristotle called the human hand the "organ of organs, the instruments of instruments." Yet hands are not simply utilitarian instruments composed of twenty-seven bones, nineteen muscles, and numerous tendons, cartilage, and ligaments. Hands clasp mysteries no one fully understands. They are often signatures of the self. Portrait painters emphasize the hands of their subjects because they are more than tools to fabricate and grasp things; they are tokens of individual personality and symbols of social significance. Babies are greeted at birth with a gentle spank to awaken their consciousness. Weddings center on the holding of hands and the exchange of rings. Funerals end with the symbolic tossing of a handful of earth onto a casket. Holding on. Letting go. Hands are also the active agents of our thoughts, emotions, and impulses. No other part of the human body is so intimately related to human behavior as the hands. Our hands fidget when we’re nervous, shake when we’re angry, and go limp when we’re disheartened. Lively hands manifest lively minds. Quintilian, the first-century Roman specialist in public speaking, advised orators to be more attentive to the use of their hands because they can “almost be said to speak.” While speaking, we use hand gestures to accentuate our arguments and dramatize our feelings. Hands also create emotional bonds. We extend our hands to greet a stranger; we hold another’s hand to provide security; we caress a loved one’s hand to convey affection; we raise prayerful hands to express communion with God. In Michelangelo’s majestic painting on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in Rome, Adam is shown extending his hand to touch the outstretched finger of his Maker. Reaching out. Holding on. Letting go. Our hands serve as messengers of our most powerful emotions. So as I look at my own creased and scarred hands, let them ache and then let them heal, for they serve as tactile markers of life’s most important moments. Godspeed graduates! The next chapter of your new lives is in good hands. ########
-- David Shi is a historian, writer and president |