Early Morning Reflection: Fragility and Reliance on the Precise Wording of Scripture

 

Early mornings have their own breath, before any birds sing or dogs bark or, in my neighborhood, before the neighbors fire up their Harleys to go to work. It's the space between the inhale of full night and the exhale of a new day. Soft and fragile, it comes when the sky turns velvet with the promise of a pink sunrise that hasn't yet come. 

Photos can't capture it because it comes only by feel, so still that its first motion comes from a mosquito that hovers near, not on, my skin. A breeze so insignificant that it gets absorbed into motion of the turning earth at any other time. 

And then it comes. The exhale. That subtle drop in temperature that starts every new day. The ambient movement that precedes first light, creating the slightest of cool breezes, the only one we will get on a day that promises to huddle with humidity and sizzle with sun. A shiver almost comes, but not quite. More a premonition that summer days aren't all beaches and state fairs, that nothing lasts forever, that footing isn't always as sure as it seems. 

And I think of Jerome. Poor, dear Jerome and his Latin Vulgate. 

It took him more than twenty years during the late fourth century and early fifth to translate both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament into the learned language of his day, Latin. The result, his Latin Vulgate translation, has been considered the gold standard by many churches ever since. In many ways, Jerome's translation has become our Bible, the one we have trusted all our lives.

And then comes the day when we understand the extent to which Jerome was just a man, inspired by God and prompted by devotion, but hampered by prejudices and the potential for error from misjudgment, illness, and just plain weariness. 

Then comes the day when we come to grips with examples of what effect the fragility of his humanity has on what we are so sure of. The Bible. Our Bible. What we take for granted as true beyond any capacity for doubt. 

Then comes the day when we learn that not every word of the Bible may be what it seems. 

Take Isaiah 7:14.

You most likely know it by heart:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

The Hebrew word used here is almah, a word that was commonly used for a young woman or maiden, a unmarried woman. Jerome knew, of course, that this verse is ideologically paired with Matthew 1:23 and undoubtedly wanted to make sure we made the connection, too:

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.

So Jerome in his zeal to clarify doctrine, substituted almah, a word meant to describe an unmarried woman with a word meant to describe a virgin instead. Not a terrible stretch, to be sure, but a stretch nonetheless. By Jerome's deft hand, the prophecy declared in Isaiah is fulfilled precisely in Matthew in a single language we couldn't mistake. Proof of Mary's virginity. Partial proof of Christ's divinity. Perfect. 

But not quite. 

While not quite a blatant mistranslation, it is an interpretation. A well-meaning one, but an interpretation even so. 

And that's the rub.

This doesn't mean that Mary, the mother of Christ, wasn't a virgin, of course. She probably was. Otherwise, what would have been all the fuss? It only means that the Bible, while an inspired document, isn't a word-for-word perfect document, especially in the English we probably all read. Not an infallible Guide for Living but signpost pointing to the God it tries to explain, intended to grow in us a desire for God that even His words will not satisfy.

The Bible is an invaluable guide and companion to a faith based not on its specific words but on God Himself. 

The Bible is a fragile connection to God sometimes, but it is a connection. Like our image in the mirror is not our complete self but a faithful representation, it still tells me valuable information about what I look like. Like the almost indetectable breeze from a mosquito's early morning wings tells me he's there, so does the Bible hover faithfully near to remind me where to look for the breath of God so that I long to turn to Him full-face so as to behold His glory. 

The Bible showcases the way. It points to the path. 

The goal is not the Bible. The goal is God.

 

Mosquito image: Dreamstime

Horizon Image: From my window at Castello di Solfagnano, Perugia, Umbria, Italy, May, 2025

Jerome image: Ascension Press

Gateway image: Entrance from chapel courtyard to garden, Castello de Solfagnano

Ben Franklin on what happens when you sweep your doorstep

Ben Franklin is well known for his respect for the industrious. His Poor Richard alter ego is responsible for familiar advice like "No pain, no gain", "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise", and even "God helps those who help themselves" (No, it's not in the Bible). I just finished his autobiography and realized that tomorrow is the 4th of July, so I thought another of his observations and the actions it prompted might make a good subject for discussion.

When Ben lived in Philadelphia as a youngish man who had already started a flourishing printing business, it was still a very young city, just getting started on what was to become a notable future, the same as the man himself. One might say they grew up together. One might even say they helped one another along and one way they did so began pretty humbly - by Ben observing a woman sweeping the street in front of her house.

In those days, none of Philly's streets were paved and it takes little imagination to understand what happened when it rained. Carriages and horses made the dirt streets a quagmire through which not only they, but men and women, had to trudge, all dragging through clinging mud, towing it with them wherever they went. 

One day, Ben observed a woman sweeping away the loose dirt in front of her house and asked why she did that. When she told him that it kept the mud down there when it rained, he, because he was Ben Franklin, had an idea. What if they paved the streets with bricks? It sounded like a fine idea and as things turned out, Ben got it done. But the way he got it done was what impressed me. He found the bricks, and found the people to do the work, then got the immediate neighbors to pitch in a little bit, just a few pennies each, to finance the work done in front of their house. Just their house, the part from which they would directly benefit. 

And something happened.

Actually, two somethings.

First, the street got paved. The mud abated. When it rained, everybody looked at their improved circumstances and took pleasure in the results. A good thing for everyone.

Also, however, something else happened. Now, Ben didn't write about this, but I got to thinking. When Philadelphians looked at their lovely paved streets, they had to be thinking, "Look what we did." Emphasis on the WE. Everyone who benefited from the project, from the residents to the bricklayers, realized not only a practical benefit from it, but could see their own participation in it. Every day, when they swept the newly laid bricks outside of their own homes. 

And that happened, I believe, because the project was accomplished not through taxes by some amorphous THEY but by people they talked to. People who had a recognizable face and with whom they'd had conversation. Neighbors. Friends. Strangers who helped each other. They'd built something. Together. And they enjoyed the fruits of their labors together. 

And they celebrated every day by sweeping.

Don't think people sweep their sidewalks anymore? You're wrong. The first time I went to Italy, on my first morning in Rome, we were staying in an Airbnb on a quiet street and I woke to singing. When I opened the shutters, I looked down. There, in front of the shop below our apartment, the shopkeeper was sweeping the sidewalk outside of his store, singing some pleasant little ditty I couldn't understand, and happy. Happy to be sweeping. Happy to have a sidewalk to sweep. Happy. 

And he was beautiful. Like Ben. Like working together for the common good with people we can embrace when the work is done. Projects that have human faces. 

I smile to think what might still be possible. Happy Fourth.

First Photo credit: Wisconsin Historical Society

Second Photo credit: Alamy

Posture

 

Stand Up Straight.

Put Your Shoulders Back.

Lift your chin.

LOOK AT ME.

All my life. The reminder to have good posture. I still think about it, looking at recent photographs of an old woman with back bent, walking with determination sometimes, but now needing to consciously adjust my spine so as to even approximate something straight. 

The years did it.

The flower is worn for sure, but the stem doesn't reach up rightly anymore, either. I look often at the ground rather than the sky. It looks likes defeat. It looks used up, and maybe it is, or nearly.

There are times when insight and adventure still reign, and the 'A' side of life still takes hold - when I buy a ticket for Italy or hop on the Queen Mary, or sign up for college - but on many days, I'd rather just take a Tylenol for the aches, lay down on the couch, and nod off, realizing that someday, sooner rather than later, I won't wake up. 

I pretty much know what it is. Something happened to the angst of living, the tortured thoughts that provided steam for my engine, the knowing that what I had was not all there was to have in this world. That there was more, and I wanted to taste it. At first it was more money or more excitement, but became later desire for more understanding, more light, more space.

And I found a lot of it. It turned out not to be too complicated. It was simple, and still is, God lays it before me every day. The wonders of clean breath. The golden light of evening. The feeling of sand on bare feet. The sound of someone calling me grandma. I remember (or think I do) an interview with Raymond Burr when he retired and was asked what he was going to do with himself, saying something like "I'm going to sit in my garden and watch my lemons grow." I didn't get it at the time. Now, I do. 

It was a shock to be done with achieving, but most days, it leaves me content. Now that my job is more giving away then grasping, I can relax a little. 

It doesn't look all that great, but it feels pretty good.

Photos by the author from her garden