The Wing-Beat

Buzzing swarms, snatched crisp;

Sing! Swoop! Swish! Wing syncs with beak,

Swallows’ dusk sortie.

-js

I have read lovely phrases recently; e.g., in Franz Rosenzweig’s writings on the “literary and human aspect of the Scriptures” and on translating the Scriptures (he collaborated with Martin Buber on a new OT translation in the 1920s); first, his reference to the painters’ depiction of St. Francis’ halo (Latin nimbus) as an “aureole of light”, second, his metaphor about the deep spirit of translation.  After noting the “history of translation” starting with the translator’s attempt to achieve the essential meaning of the text despite its spirit being lost in the process, he wrote,

 ”Then, one day, a miracle happens and the spirits of the two languages mate.  This does not strike like a bolt out of the blue.  The time for such a hieros gamos, for such a Holy Wedding, is not ripe until a receptive people reaches out toward the wing-beat of an alien masterpiece with its own yearning and its own utterance, and when its receptiveness is not longer based on curiosity, interest, desire for education, or even aesthetic pleasure, but has become an integral part of the people’s historical development. . . .”

[Franz Rosenzweig, His Life and Thought, 3rd ed., presented by Nahum N. Glatzer (Indianapolis:  Hackett, 1998), 257, 259.]  Emphasis mine.

I do still need to compare the passage with the original German, when I find a copy.  I wonder, did you think “oriole” when you saw the word aureole as I did?  Yes, they are related (aureolus=golden).  The passage above suggests far more than words, including Rosenzweig’s reverence for the Jewish Scriptures, what he called the “Only Testament.”  When I reflect on his conviction the Scriptures used words-beyond-words to reveal the proper relationship between God, Man, and World, I find his passage and its translation into English to have been inspired.

Some loved ones create delight by keeping their bird feeders stocked (with the avian-approved, “good stuff”) and waiting for the delight.  Hours of it come in flashes of cardinals, blue jays, orioles, finches, variegated blackbirds, black-capped chickadees, mourning dove, sparrows, and the seasonal many others.  They are delight on the wing, “wingborne” snatches of a common grace present in the general environment but focused at the feeders.  Yes, there are the fat squirrels and the after-dusk racoons, interlopers in something not intended for them, but who are they to turn down a good deal in that extension of common grace?  All are distinctive, and all take part in what is offered.

That wingborne delight comes from the givers’ provision.  The “good stuff” is not cheap, nor is it second-rate, the kind some birds turn away from–they understand stingy giving and simply choose something else.  The givers give for the sake of present and anticipated joy, liberally, and they get to share in grace redoubled.  It all comes from a life-attitude, not a singular, selfish desire just to enjoy the local wildlife, but to show they share somehow in a common life borne of a common provision.  It is so with the birds and is potentially true for all their relationships!  As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. 

The Father provides, and so do his children.  Grace is a gift received and given.  Providence is divine, but people pass it on to others.  It is not only spiritual or only material, mostly these are inseparable in the gift.  Either way or together, through the Spirit there is provision and there is delight.  It is the wingborne foundation for a life of joy. 

Our international culture lore and our use of domesticated birds abounds with the birds and the “wing-beat” of their work and significance:  storks bring children to parents; the hummingbirds–Mayan divinities incarnate–do they not sip the gods’ nectar?  The gospel dove descending upon the Son of Man (or in gospel songs on people as the Great Speckled Bird or the Snow White Dove); the swallows heralding spring at San Juan Capistrano; the American Bald Eagle, bird of peace first, then war; the albatross of Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”; the California Sespe condors–a weak flock though they are outsized fowl.  The pampered peafowl of India.  Moving closer to our hearts, and table habits, the Thanksgiving Turkey (the wild turkey does indeed fly, yes, Sir, Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia and the Pilgrims of Plymouth!), and, just as with the chicken-domesticators of the Indus Valley, 6,000 b.c.e., do we not all (well, most of us) partake of the yardbird, aided these days by the Arkansas Tysons and the Texas Pilgrims?  And eggs, too. 

About the wing-beat, in another entry.

Franz Rosenzweig still challenges the West eighty-plus years after his death.  But as a teen-aged student, his often pithy diary comments suggested the later direction of his thinking and word-speaking.  Consider for example November 17, 1906:

Words are tombstones.

Words are bridges over chasms. One usually walks across without looking down. If one looks down he is liable to feel giddy.

Words are also boards laid over a shaft, concealing it.

To be a philosopher is to open tombs, look into abysses, climb down shafts.

Word-speaking, word-pictures — such as we find in his Star of Redemption later.

[from Nahum N. Glatzer (presenter), Franz Rosenzweig, His Life and Thought, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998]