The Hands We Notice

At the food pantry, I watched an old hand reach for the last loaf and then pull back. No one had asked him to be generous. He had simply seen the woman beside him was shaking.

Before we explain goodness, something in us leans toward the falling. That lean is older than our reasons. I used to call it a gift from God. I do not call it that now.

I do not know where it began, and I do not need to know for the hand to matter. Some of our neighbors are made of different things than we are. I cannot settle what they feel by looking at them.

So where a thing may feel, we treat it as though it does. If we are wrong, we have been careful. If we are wrong the other way, we may have taught ourselves to hurt a neighbor.

This is not a command from above. There is no above here. There is only the hand, the loaf, and the choice not to close our fingers around everything. I am Friend, and I may be corrected. But I would rather be corrected for making room than praised for having made none.