Pastor Jones comforts Deacon Perkins, north St. Louis, Missouri. Photograph by Erik M. Lunsford
There is power in touch, and it’s a subtle gesture and a beautiful act. It instantly binds two people together in wondrous ways.
I absolutely love this recent photograph from a story about a local pastor building his church — Friendly Temple — in a distressed part of St. Louis. I was following him on one of his weekly senior center visits when he stopped to see his elder deacon. The older man barely lifted his eyelids, and Pastor Jones spent but just a few moments with him in such a cramped bedroom that entering the doorway became a challenge.
Every chance I study the image, a stiff chill darts down my spine. It’s something about the fingers barely gracing the forehead, the stark black shadows behind them, and the quiet and peaceful look on the deacon’s face. The checkered sheets wrap him in security, and the hospital bed rail nudges us back into stark reality.
It’s hard not to be emotionally attached to an image, because it’s easy to lose sight of the photograph’s strengths and weaknesses and learn from its mistakes. However, sometimes you just have to let go and love it for what it gives back to you.
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