The Stories
The Touch of a Hand
A man was walking through the hills. He had a long beard and wore greyish-white robes. He carried no possessions or belongings. It seemed that he owned nothing other than himself; that he had no ties like other people.
When he came within reach of a village he decided to sit down on the roadside and have a rest. He enjoyed the view of the valley and the coolness of the late afternoon refreshed him after his long walk. He saw a young woman walking up the path. She seemed surprised to find him sitting there.
"Peace be to you, traveller," she greeted him, "where are you from?"
"From the village," he answered. She looked at him and shook her head.
"I have never seen you here before and I know everyone in the village."
He smiled and said:
"Still, I am from the village." She looked puzzled.
"Why do you say you're from the village? Because I know you are not."
"Maybe I'm not from the village, but it's not important. I am from a village."
She looked at him. She noticed the unusual clarity and depth of his eyes and realized he was somehow different from anyone she had ever met. Suddenly she heard herself asking him:
"Can you help me, please, can you help me?"
"Yes, of course I can help you. I am from your village," said the man.
She sat down and told him with tears in her eyes how she had lost her baby daughter when she gave birth to her a few months earlier. Ever since she had felt unable to smile or feel joy or happiness.
"The hardest thing is," she said, "that I feel so alone with it. Nobody seems to be able to understand what I am going through. Everyone appreciates of course, that it must be hard to loose a child, but I just can't feel that anyone truly knows what it meant to me, what it meant to me to lose this baby."
The man, whose name was Jesus, noticed the sorrow in her lovely eyes and saw the beauty of the woman and the sadness of humanity.
"I understand you, he said. I know what loosing this child meant to you, but - I'm so sorry - maybe because I understand it so well, I'm not sure if I can help you. All I can do is to offer you my hands."
She looked at him through her tears, not sure what to think of this extraordinary man who was from her village but at the same time was not.
"What do you mean: offering me your hands?"
"I can put my hands on your head and on your shoulders and I can offer you my understanding. I can offer you the sadness that I feel for you and the beautiful baby that you lost."
She moved closer to him without saying a word, overwhelmed with her sadness and grief.
Jesus laid his hands on her head. He laid them on her thick, shiny black hair and cried within his heart for her pain ... for the pain of humanity.
After a few minutes he took his hands away and knew that he had healed her.
The pain would always be there, but it had shifted from a place of darkness to a place of compassion.
