These Gnarled and Bloodied Hands

Have you ever heard a beautiful song just once, and caught a line or two, but didn’t know the name of the artist or the song?  If you’re my age, you fell in love with music before the internet and iTunes and satellite radio, so you can recall that feeling of longing as you waited for the radio station to play that song so elusive.  And once you heard it, you hung on to its fading notes, hoping that the DJ would tell you the name of the song and the artist.  Armed with that secret knowledge, you could go to the record store and purchase an album.

If that example does not resonate in your soul, try this one.  Have you ever read a really moving piece of poetry, but after you read it, you forgot the name of the poem and the author?  Years ago, I read a poem that really struck a chord in my heart.  That was over thirty years ago, when I was much younger and much more certain that I knew everything.  I might have been wise when I was nineteen, but apparently, I have forgotten a lot, because right now I don’t recall anything more than the first four lines of that poem.  And I certainly don’t feel as confident in my own intellect as I did back then.  Nevertheless, that particular poem affected me greatly.  The author’s name, as far as I can tell, has been lost to history because a Google search yielded nothing, and Google supposedly remembers all the stuff that we forget between age nineteen and age fifty-three.  Anyway, here are the first four lines of that lost literary treasure:

If these gnarled and bloodied hands

Could craft a world for you, my love

We’d color it with laughter

And people it with children

That’s it.  That’s all I remember of the poem.  The rest of the poem has been lost in the recesses of my less-than-perfect biological hard drive.  But that phrase — “these gnarled and bloodied hands” — has stayed with me.  I liked the ambiguity of “gnarled and bloodied,” because, it seemed to me, a good man’s hands could become gnarled and bloodied in two ways:  by doing difficult, dirty, and dangerous work; or by being brutally and unjustly punished.  The writer of the poem apparently wanted to leave it open ended, because I don’t remember the poem saying how narrator’s hands became gnarled and bloodied.  The second line of the poem makes it clear that the narrator is unable to do that which he really wishes to do, which is to craft a world for the one he loves.  Those four lines paints a quick and vivid picture of the limits of human effort.

If that example falls flat, here’s another.  Do you have an old photograph of you when you were younger and in the company of someone you loved who has passed away?  Try as you may, you can not quite reconstruct the thoughts and emotions you were experiencing at the instant the shutter was snapped.  Somewhere in one of our photo albums, there’s an old photo of me with my paternal Grandfather, James Whitmire.  In that photo, I am holding a yellow plastic rake, helping him rake the front yard.  I must have been around four, and although I am smiling in the photo, I don’t remember any of my thoughts or emotions, although they must have been happy.  My Grandfather Whitmire passed away before I started first grade, so I don’t remember what his hands looked like, but he was a carpenter who laid hardwood floors and whose craftsmanship was well known.  I assume his hands were somewhat gnarled.

My maternal Grandfather, Roy Fore, on the other hand, lived until I was in eighth grade.  He was a plumber, and I remember going to work with him, and I remember feeling safe with him because, in part, he was huge and he was (to me) possibly the strongest and toughest man alive.  Specifically, I remember helping him unclog a sewer line behind a bungalow in the shadow of Mill’s Mill in Greenville, South Carolina.  The day was hot, the tree roots were strong, and the sewer line smelled, well, like a clogged sewer line in summer.  He shoved his thick, calloused hands into elbow-length, heavy-duty black rubber gloves and began the dirty, difficult task of unclogging that sewer line.  He pushed and pulled and worked the “snake” until the clog was broken and the gray water began to recede.  Sweat dripped from his bald head, sweat dripped from his nose, sweat seeped through his tee shirt, and sweat soaked the front of his overalls.  To my young eyes, his unclogging of that sewer line was absolutely heroic.  Although I have no photo of this moment, it remains etched in my memory.

Another memory of my grandfather Roy Fore is etched in my memory.  I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him and my grandmother, Ruby Fore.  My grandfather, as strong and majestic as the oak trees that shaded his front porch, would fold those mighty, scar-laced hands submissively in prayer and thank God for everything he had.  My grandmother would echo, “Amen” when he was done.

My own father was a truck driver.  As a teenager, I wanted to use his car which meant driving him to the terminal late Sunday night and picking him up on Friday afternoon.  I remember those bittersweet Sunday night drives and I remember talking to my Dad about where he would be going to go that week.  I remember listening to the local rock station on the radio on the drive home alone.  I remember that, even in my teens, my father’s hands were larger and far rougher than mine.  To me, my father’s life seemed a life of heroism and adventure: he delivered freight to far away places like Bakersfield, California and Tupelo, Mississippi.  I remember him praying over Thanksgiving dinner — I don’t recall the year, but I must have been in high school — and really listening to him.  Although I don’t recall his exact words, that day I realized that his hands were not worn from hard physical work, like my grandfathers Fore’s.  My own father’s heart was worn and weary from traveling and spending so much time away from his family.

I joined the Army after high school and for over twenty years, I did my share of hard work and travel.  Along the way, I married a kind-hearted country girl from Georgia, and we raised three wonderful sons.  So, when I was in my early forties, I got a tattoo.  Now, some Christians object to tattoos, some like them, and some have mixed feelings about them.  You’re welcome to your own opinion, but this essay isn’t really about the tattoo itself, but what it represents.

My tattoo is a drawing of Albrecht Durer’s famous woodcarving “Praying Hands.”  I chose those praying hands because they reminded me of my own journey.  Those hands, folded in prayer, are not bordered by frilly nobleman’s cuffs, they are not adorned by any precious rings, and they grasp no symbols of power or wealth.  They are simply rugged, working hands; the hands of a miner or blacksmith, the hand of a carpenter or a plumber or a truck driver or a soldier.  They are everyman’s hands, probably just a year or two short of becoming gnarled and bloodied, and they are folded in prayer.

According to one story, Albrecht Durer and his brother Albert were equally talented as woodcarvers, but the family could afford to send only one son to art school to learn to be a professional craftsman.  The brothers drew lots and, based on the results, Albert went to work in the salt mines of Austria while Albrecht went to school to learn the art of woodcarving.  Years later, when Albrecht finished school, he earned enough money to send his brother to school where he could also learn the craft of woodcarving.  However, after years of wielding hammer and chisel as his instruments, Albert’s hands were too gnarled to wield the delicate instruments of a woodcarver.  In honor of his brother, Albrecht carved the praying hands, modeling them after the hands of his brother Albert.  Today, most historians  doubt the accuracy of this story, but the story still relates a beautiful truth about the bonds of brotherhood and the value of sacrifice.  If you stop and think about it, every liberty and privilege that we enjoy was bought and paid for by the hard work and sacrifice of those who came before us; those who did the dirty, difficult, and dangerous work of setting others up for success.

Who are the “gnarled and bloodied hands” who crafted your world?  Your parents, who set you up for success?  A schoolteacher or coach who inspired you?  An older sibling or cousin who set a positive example?  

The most significant “gnarled and bloodied hands” in your life, even if you don’t always acknowledge it, are likely the hands of Christ.  Jesus Christ was most likely a very well educated man, but he lived a hard life for thirty years, working as a carpenter with his earthly father.  From my reading of the Gospels, it seems that Jesus was a hands-on leader.  I say that because the miracles, except for His healing of the Centurion’s servant, usually involved touch.  And at the end of His earthly life, he was brutally and unjustly punished with nails through his wrists.  The outspoken Galilean carpenter was, ironically, nailed to a piece of wood.  Although I believe that His sacrifice was completely sufficient for our salvation, I also believe that the worldly work of those gnarled and bloodied hands is far from finished.  

Now, back to that long-forgotten poem that began with these lines:

If these gnarled and bloodied hands

Could craft a world for you, my love

We’d color it with laughter

And people it with children

I am the author.  I wrote the poem when I was about nineteen.  Right now, however, I have no record of the rest of the poem; I assume it was sacrificed in the name of progress when I was about twenty-one and threw away most of my early writings in a fit of cleaning and organizing.  Although I have wracked my brain, I have no memory of the remaining lines.  I don’t recall the name of the young lady I must have thought I loved when I wrote it.  That sort of makes sense, though, if you think about it, because at the time I wrote it, I was a young man.  My hands had not yet become gnarled and bloodied, I had not yet met the woman who would become my wife, and I had not yet become a parent.  Chances are the rest of the poem was quite forgettable.

But enough on the limits of human intellect.  Let’s look instead at what can be done.  Maybe it’s time to quit pretending that you’re a self-made man or woman and acknowledge the sacrifices of those who made you what you are.  (You don’t have to run down to the tattoo parlor and get a tattoo of praying hands, although I’m pretty happy with mine.)  Maybe you should take a moment to recall some memories of those whose sacrifices your life was built upon.  Even if you can not recall all of the details and emotions of the moment, just recall the moment itself.

And maybe, just maybe, you should take a few minutes today and meditate on the gnarled and bloodied hands of Christ.  Then, go forth and craft a world for the ones you love, knowing full well that your own hands are going to be gnarled and bloodied when at last you’re done.