Tuesday, October 31, 2023

"We awaken in Christ's body": almost as much Stephen Mitchell as St. Symeon the New Theologian

We awaken in Christ's body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in His Godhood).

I move my foot, and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? -- Then
open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ's body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.


     Stephen Mitchell, apparently very loosely and with great poetic license paraphrasing St. Symeon the New Theologian, Hymn 15, presumably ll. 141 ff., though it is often challenging to determine at a glance which lines in particular these are supposed to be translations of, and where any ellipses may lie.  The enlightened heart:  an anthology of sacred poetry (New York:  Harper & Row, Publishers, 1989), 38-39.  "All translations and adaptations in this book are mine, unless otherwise indicated" (167, underscoring mine), and nothing is otherwise indicated for this one.  A far more straightforward key to the original Greek of Sources Chrétiennes 156 (1969), 276 ff. is Divine eros:  hymns of Saint Symeon the New theologian, trans. Daniel K. Griggs, Popular patristics series 40 (Crestwood, NY:  St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2010), 81 ff.

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