The Love of Tiny Fingers
Have you experienced soggy mask syndrome yet?
You know, the one where you have your mask tucked up over your nose, bendy wire squeezed in, ear loops tightened just right…and then you cry. Not delicate, tiny tears, real waterfall tears. The kind where you worry you might actually need to lay down on the floor for a few minutes (maybe that’s a bit dramatic…or maybe it’s not... your call ). Anyway, the tears roll right into the mask, absorb into the 3-ply, and make it all stick to your checks. Soggy mask syndrome. It’s quite a look. Tell me I’m not the only one who has experienced this!?
I only recently became acquainted with this condition when I was back in our church for the first time in 18 months. We were in person again, in our same pews, with the organ playing, the choir singing, the babies crying, and the children drawing all over whatever cards or pieces of paper they can get their hands on. The whole thing felt familiar and safe and new and novel all at once. Everything about it was moving.
The spirit in our congregation that day was a God given moment that I know we all felt.
Two rows in front of me sat an older gentleman, Clive, he’s probably in his late 70s. One row in front of him sat my friend Lindsay and her three little children. At the assigned “quick run free” moment, two of her three children skipped out of the pew to meet their Sunday school teachers. Lindsay stayed behind with her baby bouncing up and down on her lap. As her siblings flew down the aisle, this beautiful baby turned her head towards those of us sitting behind her and smiled a toothless grin. She then stared into my soul. Seriously. She did. How do babies and dogs do that?
But it wasn’t me she was interested in. It was Clive. She kept turning her body further around to get a good look at him. She then reached out her tiny hand and wiggled her dimpled fingers. She smiled again as if to say, “did you know you can move these things around?” Open and close. Open and close. She marveled over what she was able to do. All the while smiling at Clive.
At some point, Clive reached out his pointer finger very slowly. His finger was curved and shook a little. He held it there for a while until the baby figured out that she could reach it and grab hold. He swung her finger back and forth. She stared with rapt attention and smiled even wider. I could have thrown myself on the floor from the beauty of it all. Thank you God for my view today, I thought.
Love leaped between those fingers. Life sparked back and forth. They had never met before, but were now connected through the miracle of this moment.
Generations apart, one just beginning to see the world, the other wise and experienced, connected in a moment of beauty so true and life-giving its simplicity was nothing short of a miracle. Child and adult ministering to each other in the simplest of ways. Being present with one another. It wasn’t complicated. It was pure and from a fountain of love deep and alive in each of their hearts.
Got me thinking, how often do we miss miracles happening around us because we are looking for lightning bolts and fireworks? When most of the time they happen in the quiet moments of two souls connecting.
The giving and receiving of lives coming together. The communion of shared time and space. Those spaces are sacred. Keep an eye open for them.
They might just sneak up on you (along with a case of soggy mask syndrome). The miracle of being truly with someone else is a gift that gives us a glimpse into a love that is so big, deep, and wide it can be unfathomable until we feel it in the exchange with another.
So, let’s love each other well. Let’s vulnerably let each other in. Let’s learn from the tiny touch of little fingers that love isn’t that hard to pass along if we open ourselves up and reach out to another.