My Hands Would Not Stay Still At The Funeral

You folded the order of service into about nine shapes.

That is what you remember. Not the readings. Not what anybody said at the front. You remember the paper going soft at the creases and your thumbnail going along a fold and doing it again, and the small terrible awareness that you could not stop.

And at some point in the second hymn you looked at your own hands and were ashamed of them.

Everybody else was still. That is how it looked from where you sat. Rows of people being properly still in the way you are supposed to be still at a funeral, and one woman in the fourth row quietly destroying a piece of paper.

And it did not end that afternoon. Since then the making has gone on at a speed that is not like you. Three things started in two weeks. None of them finished. Up until one, hands going, and the going is the point rather than the object.

I want to say the first thing very plainly, because I think you have been carrying it for months and nobody has taken it off you.

Your hands were not being disrespectful.

A body under that much load does something with itself. Some people go absolutely rigid, which reads as composure and is not. Some people talk. Some people go and do the sandwiches, which everybody praises. And some people fold paper into nine shapes in the fourth row.

Those are all the same thing wearing different clothes.

When thou passest through the waters

There is a promise in Isaiah that people quote for comfort, and I want to point at what it does not say, because that is where the honesty is.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. (Isaiah 43:2, King James Version)

When thou passest through the waters.

Not if. Not in case. When, which means the water is assumed. And He does not say He will keep you out of it. He says He will be with you in it, which is a different promise and a truer one.

You are in the water and accompanied in it, and Isaiah 43:2 assumes the passing through rather than offering a way around. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes a promise given to a whole people in exile and lays it down on a woman in the fourth row of a funeral.

And notice there is nothing in that verse about how a person is supposed to conduct themselves in the water. No instruction about composure. No note about the correct way to pass through.

You have a companion in it who set no standard for your bearing, and it is already settled in the written word that the promise is presence rather than performance. His Spirit is the one who says that over a woman who has been ashamed of her own hands since a Thursday in the spring.

Speed is not a fault

Now let me look at the months since, because that is the live part.

There has been making at speed. Three things started, none finished, and a suspicion forming that this is not really making at all, that it is agitation with materials. What comes off that table is not a measure of you and it never has been.

Some of that may be true. And here is what I would say about it. Agitation with materials is a great deal better than agitation without any, and it is not a sin, and it is not a symptom to be corrected.

You are accompanied through the water rather than kept out of it, and Isaiah 43:2 assumes the passing through and promises company in it. The Holy Spirit is the one who sets no standard of bearing on a woman who is in it.

Your hands found something to do. That is what hands do when the rest of a person cannot get anywhere.

And this: none of those three unfinished things is a measure of you, and neither is the speed. Nobody grades a grieving woman on her finishing rate.

You are not doing this badly, and heaven has never once assessed a person on their conduct in the water. Isaiah 43:2 promises company through it and describes no manner of passing, and the Spirit of God is the one who removes a mark from a woman nobody was marking.

And there is one small thing I would offer, not as a correction but as an experiment. See what slow feels like. Not instead of the speed. Once.

You have permission to go slowly for twenty minutes without giving up the speed, and this is yours: nothing in that verse asks a person to pass through at a particular pace. It is written in Isaiah 43:2 that I will be with thee, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present at both speeds.

Twenty minutes, slowly, and then stop

So here is the ask.

Tonight, make something slowly for twenty minutes. Deliberately slowly. Half the pace your hands want.

Pick one of the three that is already started, or something new, it does not matter. Use what is already in the house.

And when the twenty minutes is up, stop. Even mid stitch. Even if it is going well and there is more in you, stop, and put it down, and walk away from it.

You have permission to put something down mid stitch, and it is already settled in Isaiah 43:2 that no pace was ever specified for the passing through. The Spirit of God is the one who is present at both speeds equally.

That is the actual exercise. Not the slowness, the stopping. Because the speed has been carrying you somewhere and stopping on purpose is how you find out that you can.

It will feel wrong. There will be a pull to keep going and it will be strong. Let it be there.

What you make in slow twenty minutes will be worse than what you make at speed, because your hands are used to the speed now. Leave it. Do not go back to it later tonight.

You are accompanied while your hands go slowly and then stop, and Isaiah 43:2 is the ground under that. The written word promises presence through the water at whatever pace a person is going, and the Spirit of God is present at a table where somebody has just put something down.