The Hand That Weighed Nothing

A retelling for children, based on Portals to Freedom by Howard Colby Ives (George Ronald, 1937). The few words in quotation marks are exactly as Ives wrote them.

It was the 5th of December, 1912, and a great steamship sat in the harbor of New York, getting ready to sail. Its engines were warming. Its ropes were nearly loose. And down inside the ship, in a wide room called the saloon, a crowd of friends had gathered for the hardest part of any visit: the goodbye.

'Abdu'l-Bahá was leaving America. For months He had traveled across the country, speaking to anyone who would listen and showing love to everyone He met. Now He was going home across the ocean, and these friends had come aboard to see Him off. Many of them knew, deep down, that they would never see His face again.

When He had finished speaking to them, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked them all to come forward. He wanted to take each person by the hand, one at a time, to say farewell.

Among them stood a man named Howard Colby Ives. He waited his turn in the line, and as he waited, the bigness of the moment seemed to wash right over him. This was the end. He would not get to stand before this face again. By the time he reached the front, he was too full of feeling to simply shake hands the ordinary way.

So Howard did something more. He sank down onto his knees. He took 'Abdu'l-Bahá's hand gently in his own, lifted it, and laid it on top of his own bowed head — the way a person might kneel for one last, precious blessing.

And there, kneeling with his eyes down, Howard noticed the thing he would remember for the rest of his whole life.

The hand did not push down on him.

It did not press, or pat, or take charge of the moment. It simply rested there, light and still, exactly where Howard had placed it. Howard later wrote that the hand lay completely relaxed, like a dead weight — as if 'Abdu'l-Bahá would not, for anything in all the world, push Himself even the tiniest bit onto the man kneeling in front of Him. He let His hand stay where it had been put, and He left what the moment meant up to Howard's own heart.

Now, you might think a hand that does nothing would feel like nothing much at all. But then Howard lifted his eyes and looked up — and that same quiet, gentle face was shining. It glowed with a light so beautiful that Howard could hardly find a word big enough for it.

And that was the part Howard could never get over, the puzzle he turned in his mind ever after. Here was a hand that weighed almost nothing, joined to a face that shone like the sun. Here was someone so great, and yet so gentle that He would not lean on another soul by even a feather's weight. His strength did not come from being bigger or louder or pushier than anyone else. It came from the opposite. It came from gentleness.

The ship's ropes came loose. Slowly, the great vessel began to pull away from the shore. The friends crowded to watch, and there at the railing stood 'Abdu'l-Bahá, growing smaller across the widening water. As He went, He repeated softly the words that were like the very breath of His life — Alláh'u'Abhá — which means God the All-Glorious.

Howard never forgot that weightless hand. And here is what it taught him, and what it can teach us too: real greatness is not about pushing other people around or making yourself seem important. The truly great are often the gentlest of all. The hand had weighed almost nothing — but the blessing it left behind has never once lifted.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "The Hand Upon My Head".

Ives, H. C.. (1937). *Portals to Freedom*. George Ronald. https://bahai-library.com/ives_portals_freedom