On the Left Hand

The nurse inserts a needle into my left hand: it carries needed medicines to a thirsty system. If you’re right-handed, the left knows what the right doesn’t know: so says Keith Jarrett, the great jazz pianist. St. Paul thinks you can know too much.

            I glance at my watch, keeping track of passing time. Some place the price of a car on the left wrist, but mine is simple; all I need is a clear dial outside and a steady tick inside. Somewhat like the rest of me.

            Where the left hand is kept to lowly jobs, good things like writing and eating are reserved for the right. Some say the left-hand road is the devil’s path. But great art is made with the left hand. Left-handed piano works of Britten and Ravel; drawings and paintings by Leonardo. Alms given with the left hand are given secretly, to the pleasure of God.

            What about a theology of the left hand? Is the left the hand God uses in darkness? May darkness exist from the beginning, or the uncreated light?[1] God still moves in that time before the creation of the lesser and the greater lights. When we were not asking too many questions. Are bad events due to the absence of light? What would change, if you changed hands?

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[1] A doctrine of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Refers not to the essence but to the operations of God, as seen at the Transfiguration. See Gregory Palamas (c. 1296-1359).  See also John of Ruysbroeck, Flemish mystic (1294-1381) ‘The uncreated light, which is not God, but is the intermediary between God and the ‘seeing thought’ in contemplation. The uncreated light is neither accepted nor condemned by the Roman Church. What I write here is pure speculation.