Michelangelo in all of us

You wouldn’t know it from the photo, but the girl and guy above don’t care for each other much. The scene is the West Bank village of Bil’in, and the protestor (probably from Europe or the U.S.) is trying to take a shield away from an Israeli soldier. The picture almost seems gentle, and so it is not representative of what was actually happening. On the other hand, it reminds me of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” and so maybe it actually is representative of what was happening. What do the Sistine Chapel and the outskirts of a Palestinian village have in common? They are places where hands create.

Speaking of hands, just a few miles from Bil’in and many centuries earlier we’re told that Jesus, during a confrontation of his own, used his hands to create. Face to face with religious leaders and an adulterous woman they had cornered, Jesus listened as they said, “In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

What the men said was true; the law commanded that a stone, perhaps many stones, fly at this woman until she was a bloody corpse. In response Jesus bent down and used his finger to write in the earth. Straightening up a moment later he said to the leaders something like, “If any of you have lived a pure life, go ahead and hurl a rock at her.” He then bent back down and continued writing. We’re never told what he wrote, but when one by one the religious leaders had walked off and only he and the woman remained, he asked the woman, “Has no one condemned you?” No one had, and so Jesus continued, “Neither do I. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Throughout the ages and in every place, the movements of hands—and sometimes their stillness—have left lines in sand, in history, and on people’s faces. Like the soldier and the protestor, or Jesus and the adulterer, all of us are participants in an ongoing creation, which is to say that there is a little Michelangelo in all of us. Or maybe there is a lot?

In any case, our hands create, and they are at their best when connected to a mind and heart that cares. Just ask a 2,000-year-old adulterer.

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For an image of a man throwing a stone, this one a Palestinian in the village of Bil'in, click on "Anger"