A Drift of Pinions
Job 38:1-7
NRSV: 1Then the Lord
answered Job out of the whirlwind:
2 Who is this that
darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
CJB: 1 Then Adonai
answered Iyov out of the storm:
2 “Who is this,
darkening my plans with his ignorant words?
….
NRSV: 4 Where were you
when I laid the foundation of the Earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
CJB: 4 “Where were you
when I founded the earth?
Tell me, if you know
so much.
Hebrews 1:1-14
NRSV: (2)……a Son, whom he appointed
heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the
reflection of Gods glory and the exact imprint of Gods very being,…..
CJB: ….his Son, to whom he
has given ownership of everything and through whom he created the
universe. 3 This Son is the radiance of
the Sh’khinah, the very expression of God’s essence,
NRSV: 10And,
In the beginning, Lord,
you founded the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
11 they will perish,
but you remain;
they will all wear out like clothing;
12 like a cloak you
will roll them up,
and like clothing they will be changed.
But you are the same,
and your years will never end.
CJB: 10 and,
“In the beginning,
Lord,
you laid the
foundations of the earth;
heaven is the work of
your hands.
11 They will vanish,
but you will remain;
like clothing, they
will all grow old;
12 and you will fold
them up like a coat.
Yes, they will be
changed like clothing,
but you remain the
same,
your years will never
end.”
St Michael and All Angels; September 29th
Job has been my favorite book of the Old Testament since
I was a little girl and unchurched.
I think it was because my father loved it, and he would read
Chapter 38 from the King James Bible in a resonant voice:
19 Where is the way
where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
20 That thou shouldest
take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the
house thereof?
He would read the whole chapter out loud just for the joy of it, and tell me that the King
James Bible had the most beautiful language of all. I read Shakespeare as a
teenager as well, and I think perhaps my love of language was born between the
two.
This love arose out of the tingling shiver that I felt
sometimes, hearing superb and evocative language. Words could bring me to
tears, or make me feel like dancing, or sometimes even as if I could fly. This
love was the compelling force that made me begin to write, first poetry and
then essays and reflections.
As far as the angels go, I never thought much about the
angels until I became a police officer and found out that St. Michael was our
patron saint. My only other exposure to a developed concept of what an angel
might be was in reading C.S. Lewis’s description of an Oyarsa, which were the
tutelary angels of planetary bodies in his science fiction series.
“The nineteenth century poet Francis Thompson speaks
of our blindness to angelic presences, asserting that the Kingdom of God is not
distant from us in a strange far away realm, (Malacandra or Perelandra?) but is
as close as our breathing. The movement of angels’ wings, “the drift of
pinions,” we so long to hear are right alongside us, but we cannot hear the
sound because we have our doors shut so tight against the supernatural. The
guardian angels have not forsaken us, they keep their ancient divinely
appointed places. The Psalmist speaks of angels protecting us from striking our
foot against a stone (91.12). Here Thompson depicts a scene of stumbling a
little, turning over a stone in the path , and the angels lurching forward
their wings outspread protectingly. The fault lies with us; it is our
estrangement from the holy, that causes is time and time again to “miss the
many splendored thing (“The Kingdom of God”).”
“Not where the wheeling
systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving
soars! -
The drift of pinions, would
we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered
doors.
The angels keep their
ancient places-
Turn but a stone and start a
wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd
faces,
That miss the
many-splendored thing.”
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