“THE most beautiful thing we can witness is the mysterious. Those to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, are as good as dead; their eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein In my study I have a small collection of icons illustrating the life of Christ.

One of my favourites is a cheap piece of wooden board with a painting of the Epiphany: the wise men visiting the infant Jesus.

It has faded with age, and it was no great work of art to start with, but it is still a very striking image.

The three Magi, on their knees, are lined up in front of the Christ child.

The first wise man – Caspar by tradition – has already given his gift, a weighty-looking pot of gold, to the infant Jesus who is handing it effortlessly to Joseph.

The second and third wise men, Melchior and Balthasar, are eagerly waiting their turn, arms already stretched out towards the baby.

And Mary, seated on a simple wooden stool, responds in kind, holding out her child as if she wants to pass him to the unknown visitors.

This picture is a welcome antidote to a ubiquitous Yuletide image of our day: the Boxing Day sales with the crowds crouched at the store threshold, waiting for the tills to open.

There is the same eagerness in each picture, but the eagerness of the wise men and Mary and Joseph and Jesus is not to acquire and possess but to give and share.

If you sit with my icon for a while what you notice most are the hands: the long, elegant, sophisticated hands of the wise men; the loving, gentle hands of Mary and Joseph; the pudgy paws of the baby Jesus.

The gestures made by their hands are calm and harmonious.

They gently draw our attention to the centre of the picture, where the baby, enthroned in unlikely majesty on his mother’s knee, offers a priestly blessing with his right hand.

All the hands in this picture are hands wholeheartedly devoted to generous giving and grateful receiving.

Or, to put it another way, they are hands devoted to worship.

What we do with our hands tells us a great deal about what matters most to us.

As a new year begins why not make it your resolution to use your hands as generously as you can?

Each morning as you wake up, look at your hands and ask for strength to make use of them wisely and well. To greet and share, to heal and mend, to welcome and encourage, to bless and comfort.

If we manage to do this, even a little, we will heed Einstein’s advice and witness a strange mystery: that the more we give the more we shall receive.