Blessed
are the gentle . . .
The phone rang.
“In the RSV,” Axel said, “it’s ‘gentle’: ‘Come to me, all who labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn
from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ For I am ‘gentle and lowly in heart.”
“Yeah?” I said.
“The RSV,” Axel said, “Revised Standard
Version.”
“I know,” I said. “I know what RSV stands for.”
“But at 5:5, it has ‘Blessed are the meek.’”
“Yeah?” I said again.
“Matthew 5:5,” Axel said.
“I know,” I said. I don’t know much, but I know that.
“What’s this all about?” I said.
“Can we meet somewhere?” Axel said. “Is it okay with Roz?” Roz is in
charge of social distancing at our house.
“I’ll ask,” I said. There was a pause. “You’ll have to hang up,” I said,
“so I can call her.”
“She says we can meet on the campus, in
front of the library. There are chairs. There’s shade. There’s plenty of room.
“‘Ten feet apart.’ she says.”
“Okay,” Axel said. “When?”
He was there first, and he had written
on the sidewalk with an egg-shaped piece of green chalk:
“What’s this all about?” I said again.
He pointed to what he had written. “PRAH-OOS,”
he said. “Gentle or meek?”
“I’m about to find out,” I said.
“Maybe.” Then he said, “How are you?”
“How are you?” I said.
“You do that a lot,” he said.
“What?”
“You answer a question with a question. Rather, you don’t answer a
question with a question.”
“I don’t know how I am,” I said. “How are you?”
“I don’t guess I know either.
How about this heat?”
“Yes,” I said. “To answer a question with a question: ‘How about this
heat?’”
I pointed at πραΰς.
“I was re-reading Matthew 10 and 11 this
morning,” Axel said. “It’s full of shouting. Or it begins that way: woes that bring judgment on me as much
as on Chorazin, Bethsaida, or Capernaum. ‘Stop yelling,’ I want to tell Jesus: ‘This
is not what you do best.’ Then I
think, ‘But it’s Matthew yelling, not Jesus. What Jesus is telling his
disciples is really what Matthew wants to tell the church.’
“I don’t know that, of course, but I’m
thinking anyway, ‘Is this long speech from one who is “gentle and lowly in
heart”? That’s the Jesus I want to come to, the one that will give me rest.
That’s the Jesus I want to learn from. Could he teach me to be gentle as well?”
“What’s the Latin?” I said to see if he
knew it though he always does.
“Why?” he said. Then: “mitis.”
I laughed. “You know more shit about more
shit than anyone I know,” I said.
“No,” he said. “You do. I only know more
shit about this shit.”
He got
out his phone. “Let’s look it up,” he said. “Okay," I said. I hadn’t thought of that possibility.
“Here,” he said, “mitis, mitis, mite - first definition ‘mellow.’ The verb is mitigo, mitigāre - mellow, ripen,
soften, appease. The adjective is
mellow, ripe, soft, calm, mild, gentle.
Interesting, right?”
“Yes,” I said because it was. “Yes, okay,”
I said, “but what’s the point?”
“You don’t want the rest of the lecture?”
Axel asked, trying to sound disappointed.
“I don’t know. Do I?”
“The
point is 5:5, ‘Blessed are the meek.’”
“It’s the same word.” I pointed to the
sidewalk.
“Yes, πραΰς. What if King James had
translated, ‘Blessed are the gentle’?”
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