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< Carol Ann
Webb
>
Hands of Healing 1
Mixed Media
Hands of Healing was a gift from the Spirit, two weeks after my dad
died. As often happens, the Spirit only gave me a part of the song,
leaving it up to me to complete (or not). Although a parish organist, I
have not taken music theory classes - and had certainly never composed
any music prior to waking up that gifted morning with the first 4 notes of
the melody and the accompanying words, “Hands of healing” running through
my head. And the song fragment/Spirit wouldn’t let me go, compelling me to
finish it.
After a week, the
melody and remaining words were completed, becoming a breath prayer for
me, chanted over and over and over, consciously and subconsciously, a
song-prayer without ceasing for the next year as I struggled with
harmonizing it.
Bubbling up even as I
was in the midst of other activities, Hands of Healing became an
instrument of healing for me as I grieved my dad’s death that first year.
As my focus gradually flowered outward again, I began chanting the hymn
when praying for others – inserting a name in the text: “Hands of healing,
Jesus, lay on ‘Betty’; gentle hands of healing, Jesus, lay on ‘Betty.’”
May Hands of
Healing be a source of strength, comfort and healing to all who chant
it — a gift to you from the Spirit.
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