“Henri Nouwen often wrote about the comparison between the life of openhandedness, which leads to joyful, prayerful service, and the contrasting life of the tightly closed, clenched fists of self-centeredness, which lead to inner tension and the desire to cling to those things that foster greed and create fear. He relates the story of an old woman brought to a psychiatric center:
“She was wild, swinging at everything in sight, and scaring everyone so much that the doctors had to take everything away from her. But there was one small coin which she gripped in her fist and would not give up. In fact, it took two men to pry open that squeezed hand. It was as though she would lose her very self along with the coin. If they deprived her of that last possession, she would have nothing more, and be nothing more. That was her fear.”
Although more dramatic than we care to admit, this image also reflects many of our own lives. We are clinging to possessions, experiences, even people with such a strong-fisted grip that we fear ever releasing them, not knowing what will happen if we let them go. Nouwen reminds us that unless we open up our hands and release all that we are and all that we have, we will not experience the abundant life of Christ. Jesus gave all that he was and all that he had in order that we might be saved from the bondage of sin and self-absorption.
The antidote to a life of fearful clenched-fistedness is prayer.
“To pray means to open your hands before God. It means slowly relaxing the tension which squeezes your hands together and accepting your existence with an increasing readiness, not as a possession to defend, but as a gift to receive. Above all, prayer is a way of life which allows you to find a stillness in the midst of a world where you open your hands to God’s promises, and find hope for yourself, your fellowman, and the whole community in which you live. In prayer, you encounter God in the soft breeze, in the distress and joy of your neighbor and in the loneliness of your own heart.”
Henri Nouwen in With Open Hands (Notre Dame: Ave Maria, 1982), 12, 154, as quoted by Stephen A. Macchia in Becoming a Healthy Disciple: 10 Traits of a Vital Christian (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004) 229.