The Reciprocating Touch

The poet R.S. Thomas writes about Michelangelo’s fresco The Creation of Adam which is on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In the fresco, Adam reaches toward God who is already reaching toward Adam, their fingers almost touch. The narrator of the poem cannot see God in the darkness within him nor in the darkness without. He concludes, “What to do but, like Michelangelo’s Adam, put my hand out into unknown space, hoping for the reciprocating touch?” When in the darkness we reach toward God hoping that God is already reaching toward us, we act in faith.