A helping hand

In photographing a monarch butterfly as it explored the hand of a young girl, the notion of a “helping hand” was mainly what I had in mind.

But given recent headlines about the horrors unfolding in Africa and the Near East, and the bleak future facing many human societies and innocent, wild creatures, I recalled a story about ruthless power.

In a famous Sherlock Holmes tale, set in Victorian England, a self-made millionaire “iron of nerve and leathery of conscience” bristled at being questioned by Holmes. “I have broken stronger men than you,” he snarled. “No man ever crossed me and was the better for it.” And to make the point, had a butterfly or small songbird been within reach, it would have been in character for Mr. Neil Gibson to clench “a great knotted fist” and to crush it.

The results of this impulse—to hurt and crush—have been much in my mind this summer, even while working with buoyant children. Shall images of hatred, anger and “knotted fists” pictured in the media for countless weeks persuade us that they are the measure of “reality?”

I’m loath to believe it. And so I retain a belief that affirming hands are more instinctive than “great knotted fists.”