This post is a follow-up to the one preceding. The Jenny
Curran I knew told me that the first day she was ever fully alive was when she
found out that she had AIDS (a death-sentence at the time). The day she learned,
she reconciled with God and with herself, and dedicated the rest of her life, a
scant few years, to her fellow AIDS victims. She accompanied
them to their death before death took her. She was known as the angel of many a
hospital ward filled with AIDS victims in northern Italy in that brief span of
her life.
A passage in Psalm 84, vv 2-6a, fit her destination point
when I spoke with her, when she confessed in the true sense of that word not
long before dying. The translation I offer is my own. It is a revision of
previous translations, from KJV to that of Robert Alter. Even when my
translation departs from them, it remains indebted to them.
מַה־יְּדִידוֹת מִשְׁכְּנוֹתֶיךָ
יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת׃
נִכְסְפָה וְגַם־כָּלְתָה נַפְשִׁי
לְחַצְרוֹת יְהוָה
לִבִּי וּבְשָׂרִי יְרַנְּנוּ
אֶל אֵל־חָי׃
How lovely your dwellings,
יהוה Sabaoth!
My soul has longed, even languished
for the courts of יהוה.
My heart and flesh shout out
to the living God.
גַּם־צִפּוֹר מָצְאָה בַיִת
וּדְרוֹר קֵן לָהּ
אֲשֶׁר שָׁתָה אֶפְרֹחֶיהָ
אֶת־מִזְבְּחוֹתֶיךָ יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת
מַלְכִּי וֵאלֹהָי׃
Even the bird has found a home,
the swallow, a recess for
herself
where she set her young
by your altars, יהוה Sabaoth,
my king and my God!
אַשְׁרֵי יוֹשְׁבֵי בֵיתֶךָ
עוֹד יְהַלְלוּךָ
אַשְׁרֵי אָדָם
עוֹז־לוֹ בָךְ
Happy those who dwell in your house,
they praise you still!
Happy the one
whose strength is in you!
This post, and the one preceding, is
dedicated to the memory of the Jenny Curran I knew. But also, it is my tribute to
John Calvin on the 500th anniversary of his birth.
At the intersection of chance,
predestination, and prayer, an intersection Calvin knew well, a meeting takes
place. Make no mistake about it: it is the meeting of your life.
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