Mark 9:27

But Jesus took his hand, and lifted him; and he stood up.


passivity amidst opportunity
no long-term strategy
for anything but disappointment

where trapped by a lingering past
with no horizon in sight
we sleep and sleep again

volition exhausted
astral projection sputtering
we are in space alone

a hand is given who knew
fractured assurance coalesces
a hand is taken who knows

lift pirouette lifted
a hero’s journey continues
after a daunting trial


The “prayer” addressed the spirit of muteness, the fear that keeps us silent, the anger that stops our tongue, the impotence that shuts us down.

The “hand” addresses the person. All the way through this story care is shown on a one-to-one basis. The parent has been working in the background for years and is still engaged by bringing the child where they hope a difference will be made. The healer reaches to touch, to hold, to aid in bringing them to their feet.

Here we are reminded of the external world that so impacts our life. It may be a “spirit” working directly or a “spirit-of-the-age” that works on whole systems within which we live and move and have being. This external presence needs dealing with.

Regardless of the setting in which we find ourself there is an internal reality as well as an external. This can be bolstered while under the influence of the social, political, economic forces battling their way for control. Should an oppression suddenly cease and we find our struggle against it so consuming that we become unbalanced when aggression is removed, a hand to reorient is quite needed.

When the tables have been turned it is never easy to find a growth spot still available to us. We have invested so much in dealing with repressive realities that we keep trying whatever resistance we were able to muster in a new situation that doesn’t need our defensive maneuverings. We just need to stand in our new life for a little to get the lay of the land again and to get back to putting one foot in front of another and string together one word and a next and next.

We sometimes talk about keeping a main thing the main thing. Here we need to keep two main things: a prayer and a hand.