Raise High Your Gates O Jerusalem

-

The First Song, Psalm 24

7/30/22


Today I sing of construction and death

Of making and taking away.  


I once heard some angels sing 

In plain chant

“O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors.”

I sat behind the screen, not allowed

To see cloistered nuns’ bodies, not even wimples.

I could not gaze into their eyes,

And had to content myself with 

A soft song of return to the City of God.


This as close as I was allowed to venture.


My carpenter called to say 

My doors would have to wait a day.

The father of one of the workers died last night

And he, a pandit, had to attend to the rituals of death.

.

I love Sushil. 

He works well.

His eye is true.

His lines are straight and plumb.

His doors close and latch.


Jerusalem is no more holy than my Indian Jogiwara.

The nuns who sang so sweetly believe theirs was the City of God. 

Though I never trusted Augustine, I almost did

When I heard their soft cry to the Lord.

May they sing for Sushil today as he lights the pyre to consume this father’s body.

Raise high your gates, O McLeod Ganj, so that we all can pass through.


Sushil and his carpenters will return tomorrow. 

Two solid wooden doors to finish.


Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.


Psalm 24 King James Version

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.

For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.


Psalm 24


यह धरती और उस पर की सब वस्तुएँ यहोवा की है। यह जगत और इसके सब व्यक्ति उसी के हैं।

यहोवा ने इस धरती को जल पर रचा है। उसने इसको जल—धारों पर बनाया।

यहोवा के पर्वत पर कौन जा सकता है? कौन यहोवा के पवित्र मन्दिर में खड़ा हो सकता है और आराधना कर सकता है?

ऐसा जन जिसने पाप नहीं किया है, ऐसा जन जिसका मन पवित्र है, ऐसा जन जिसने मेरे नाम का प्रयोग झूठ को सत्य प्रतीत करने में न किया हो, और ऐसा जन जिसने न झूठ बोला और न ही झूठे वचन दिए हैं। बस ऐसे व्यक्ति ही वहाँ आराधना कर सकते हैं।

सज्जन तो चाहते हैं यहोवा सब का भला करे। वे सज्जन परमेश्वर से जो उनका उद्धारक है, नेक चाहते हैं।

वे सज्जन परमेश्वर के अनुसरण का जतन करते हैं। वे याकूब के परमेश्वर के पास सहायता पाने जाते हैं।

फाटकों, अपने सिर ऊँचे करो! सनातन द्वारों, खुल जाओ! प्रतापी राजा भीतर आएगा।

यह प्रतापी राजा कौन है? यहोवा ही वह राजा है, वही सबल सैनिक है, यहोवा ही वह राजा है, वही युद्धनायक है।

फाटकों, अपने सिर ऊँचे करो! सनातन द्वारों, खुल जाओ! प्रतापी राजा भीतर आएगा।

वह प्रतापी राजा कौन है? यहोवा सर्वशक्तिमान ही वह राजा है। वह प्रतापी राजा वही है।

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“If Adam Picked the Apple”

-
by Danielle Coffyn If Adam Picked the Apple There would be a parade, a celebration, a holiday to commemorate the day he sought enlightenment. We would not speak of temptation by the devil, rather, we would laud Adam’s curiosity, his desire for adventure and knowing. We would feast on apple-inspired fare: tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies. There would be plays and songs reenacting his courage. But it was Eve who grew bored, weary of her captivity in Eden. And a woman’s desire for freedom is rarely a cause for celebration.
Read more

White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field

-
Image
Detail from Audubon Plate 121 Snowy Owl by Mary Oliver Coming down out of the freezing sky with its depths of light, like an angel, or a Buddha with wings, it was beautiful, and accurate, striking the snow and whatever was there with a force that left the imprint of the tips of its wings — five feet apart — and the grabbing thrust of its feet, and the indentation of what had been running through the white valleys of the snow — and then it rose, gracefully, and flew back to the frozen marshes to lurk there, like a little lighthouse, in the blue shadows — so I thought: maybe death isn't darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us — as soft as feathers — that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes, not without amazement, and let ourselves be carried, as through the translucence of mica, to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow, that is nothing but light —...
Read more

DREAMS

-
by Mary Oliver All night the dark buds of dreams open richly. In the center of every petal is a letter, and you imagine if you could only remember and string them all together they would spell the answer. It is a long night, and not an easy one— you have so many branches, and there are diversions— birds that come and go, the black fox that lies down to sleep beneath you, the moon staring with her bone-white eye. Finally you have spent all the energy you can and you drag from the ground the muddy skirt of your roots and leap awake with two or three syllables like water in your mouth and a sense of loss—a memory not yet of a word, certainly not yet the answer— only how it feels when deep in the tree all the locks click open, and the fire surges through the wood, and the blossoms blossom. If you want to read more of Mary Oliver’s poems, here are some that I like.
Read more