Life 101 - Beautiful Hands
Idle Hands
Recently, my sister had an argument with my elder brother who’s working as a mechanic in the Middle East.
My younger sister pleads for his assistance, since she just applied for a job at the legislator’s office after the local elections.
My brother complained and asked why he was obligated to send money. My sister reasoned out that it was for mother as he had promised prior his leaving months ago.
He retorted that I and my sister should work and we don’t have to rely on his allotment.
My sister got angry she knows that I am on vacation after a contract overseas as a seafarer.
In Philippine setting, and as obligated by POEA, 80% of total earnings an OFW incur should be remitted back to our country. The immediate allotee of a single man working abroad should be his parents, especially his mother.
Anyways, after that call, we never bother my elder brother.
Things must have been really hard for him, working overseas.
Blessings came from other sources. God knows how we needed it these days.
As a writer on HubPages and blogger as well, I never limit my hands to idleness.
I plant vegetables, trees and ornamental plants while weaving ideas to be documented.
For now, I don’t have to make a big deal on what’s my brother had commented about me and my sister.
Being a homebody, temporarily, doesn’t mean I’m not working at all.
There are lots of things to be done, from simple chores up to the complicated ones.
Working hand
A beautiful story retold by my teacher
I was in elementary grades when I first heard the story about ‘Beautiful Hands’.
Although, the characters are vague to me now, the gist of the narrative proved that working hands are the most beautiful.
In search of the most beautiful hands, an elderly who had lost her eyesight patiently touched each pair from individual who visited her home.
According to her, the more calloused the hands are, the more beautiful it is.
In the eyes of God, workings hands are most rewarding.
With these hands
In the 60s, my father was a budding combo player.
Along with his brothers, their uncle taught them how to play different musical instruments. They called them ‘maestro’.
During his late teenage life, he experienced the life of a musician.
He admitted that he never knew hard labor, as in farming (cultivating rice, coconuts or manila hemp).
But when he married my mom, he gradually learned how to farm or even how to fish as an added skill.
His hands, though, still know how to strum guitar; became calloused because of his work in the field.
He had grown wiser and experience taught him to never make one’s hands idle.
Extending a Helping Hand
I can usually see beggars asking for alms, mostly at the façade of the church.
Most of the parishioners are oblige to give them alms but others try to be indifferent with them.
Let them work, other would say.
My heart melts in pity whenever I see group of elders begging for food.
When I ask them where their families are, most of them are unwilling to reveal their own stories.
One time, when a fellow active social media user posted a photo of an old man in Facebook begging to help him go home, donations came fast.
He came to the big city from his province, as directed by his employer. As a carpenter, he brought along some skilled teenagers to help him with the job. Unfortunately, the businessman never met him and the old man resorted to begging in order to survive in the city.
The church became their temporary refuge until the help came.
Unseen Hands
People, nowadays, are inspired by persons who can perform as whole human being even without hands.
Take for instance the inspiring life of a Filipina-American commercial pilot, Jessica Cox, who was born without both arms.
She used her feet as her hands and normally does the chores and average woman can do. She writes, cook and beautify her self.
What is amazing is her skill as a pilot!
As another turn of fate, inspirational speaker Nick Vujicic, was also born without arms and limbs.
But even with his disabilities, he lives normally and delivers the messages of hope across the world.
These two, Nick and Jessica, have their own families now.
It’s truly a triumph to surpass human’s physical limitations.
With or without arms, the Unseen Hands of God work mysteriously in every one of us.