Kids, Stars And A Pocket Of Grace

The Beatles released the hit back in 1964. Back when Lyndon B. Johnson was president, the cost to mail a letter five cents, and Dr. Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize. In those years, us neighbor kids, we ran free under a security blanket of glistening stars playing hide-and-seek, naivete our truest strength.

Oh yeah I tell you somethin'

I think you'll understand

When I say that somethin'

I want to hold your hand

I want to hold your hand

I want to hold your hand

Touch, a universal language that caulks the bridge between fear and trust, love and hate. And eons have passed since I first heard that song ringing out on the radio, those simple lyrics, like unhurried walks we kids took to the local Dairy Queen to buy a chocolate-dipped vanilla ice cream cone for five cents. Unblemished joy.

Recently, when brown-haired grandson cried out in the backseat of our car with unrelenting ear pain, unblinkingly I turned and reached toward his hurt and simultaneously he grasped the tips of my fingers clingingly, hungry for grace. A few minutes passed, his tears unabated and I asked my husband to pull the car over. Settling myself in the back seat next to him, I stroked his head then gloved his small hand in mind. A pocket of comfort angled itself between the two of us, his cries for the moment blessedly stilled.

Often in life it's the small gifts, the authentic moments that trace the heart with God's presence. A hand held right tender and true, a child taking a gleeful, elongated lick of ice cream dripping down the side of a cone, a radiant starry night to illuminate the past with gentle mercy.

And even the toughest ones need a helping hand now and then, someone to step into that glimpse of weakness, stretch the fingers toward the need, crafting the moment into one more prize for peace. Telling each other in the darkest of moments, the light is shining above all of for you, all for you, olly olly oxen free.

When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of creation is completed inside us. The doors of our Souls fly open and Love steps forth to heal everything in sight.

~Michael Bridge~