Stepping up to the Plate

It wouldn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to tell from a glance round my room that I’m right handed.  The coffee table is on the right hand side of the armchair, for example, and the lamp is on the left hand side of the desk so that I can see what I’m writing.  You can imagine my anxiety and dismay, then, (not to mention the pain!) when, late one evening, I lost my grip on a heavy piece of metal and, on its way to the ground, it jammed my right thumb against the floor of my van.  As I drove home awkwardly, my imagination was running wild, thinking I had probably broken the thumb, at the very least.

After a night of disturbed sleep, I made my way to the kitchen with the thumb still throbbing.  Then came the inspiration for this article.  I cannot recall a definite thought process that said, ‘the right thumb is injured – I shall have to use the left hand to open the coffee jar.’  I know it could have been that I was only half awake, but my first awareness of anything unusual was looking down to see the jar gently clutched between my right hand and my chest and the left hand grasping the lid with serious intent.

With the coffee successfully made, I adjourned to the armchair for my prayer time.  Here, amazingly, the prescribed reading was from I Cor. 12, where St Paul writes about the various parts of the body and their inter-dependence.  My eye was drawn to verse 25, “its parts should have … concern for each other”, and as I linked this to my recent experience in the kitchen, my memory took me back to my days of singing psalms in a church choir.  Later, a few moments with a concordance revealed Ps. 139 vv.13-14: “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  I felt I’d had certain evidence of the marvel of God’s creation, as my left hand, aware of the predicament of his opposite number, had instinctively stepped forward to fill the gap in the early morning team.

And what does this not uncommon sequence of events have to teach us at a wider level?  Surely it should convince us of our responsibility, as members of Christ’s body, the Church.   We should not only be willing to take on duties that may be requested of us, but also be aware of what is going on around us, and be ready to step forward and offer our services when we notice that someone else is temporarily incapacitated.  How much more welcome is the offer of help that embarrassment or uncertainty might prevent us requesting!

The thumb wasn’t broken, by the way.  After a couple of days it stopped hurting, a large black blob on the nail gradually grew out, and today the incident is all but forgotten: John 9:3b applies, perhaps?