THE LIVING PAINTING (5)
Looking at the people I live with, the handicapped men and women as well as their assistants, I see the immense desire for a father in whom fatherhood and motherhood are one. They all have suffered from the experience of rejection or abandonment; they all have been wounded as they grew up; they all wonder whether they are worthy of the unconditional love of God, and they all search for the peace where they can safely return and be touched by hands that bless them.
Rembrandt portrays the father as the man who has transcended the ways of his children. His own loneliness and anger may have been there, but they have been transformed by suffering and tears. His loneliness has become endless solitude, his anger boundless gratitude. This is who I have to become. I see it as clearly as I see the immense beauty of the father's emptiness and compassion. Can I let the younger and the elder son grow in me to the maturity of the compassionate father?
When, four years ago, I went to Saint Petersburg to see Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son, I had little idea how much I would have to live what I then saw. I stand with awe at the place where Rembrandt brought me. He led me from the kneeling, disheveled young son to the standing, bent-over old father, from the place of being blessed to the peace of blessing. As I look at my own aging hands, I know that they have been given to me to stretch out toward all who suffer, to rest upon the shoulders of all who come, and to offer the blessing that emerges from the immensity of God's love.
注釈:本シリーズは今回が最終回です。
Looking at the people I live with, the handicapped men and women as well as their assistants, I see the immense desire for a father in whom fatherhood and motherhood are one.
「immense」は「(普通では計り切れないほど)巨大な、広大な、多大の、計り知れない」。
They all have suffered from the experience of rejection or abandonment; they all have been wounded as they grew up; they all wonder whether they are worthy of the unconditional love of God, and they all search for the peace where they can safely return and be touched by hands that bless them.
「abandonment」は「放棄」。
Rembrandt portrays the father as the man who has transcended the ways of his children.
「transcend」は「(経験・理性など<の限界>を越える(go beyond)」。
His own loneliness and anger may have been there, but they have been transformed by suffering and tears.
His loneliness has become endless solitude, his anger boundless gratitude.
「solitude」は「孤独」。「gratitude」は「感謝」。
This is who I have to become. I see it as clearly as I see the immense beauty of the father's emptiness and compassion.
「compassion」は「思いやり」。
Can I let the younger and the elder son grow in me to the maturity of the compassionate father?
When, four years ago, I went to Saint Petersburg to see Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son, I had little idea how much I would have to live what I then saw.
I stand with awe at the place where Rembrandt brought me.
「awe」は「畏れ」。
He led me from the kneeling, disheveled young son to the standing, bent-over old father, from the place of being blessed to the peace of blessing.
「disheveled」はここでは「(服装が)だらしのない」。
As I look at my own aging hands, I know that they have been given to me to stretch out toward all who suffer, to rest upon the shoulders of all who come, and to offer the blessing that emerges from the immensity of God's love.
「emerge」は「出て来る」。
この本は著者にとって3回目でしたが、「注釈」を加えるという立場で読みましたので毎日執筆して3カ月かかりました。その分著者にも「新しい」発見もあり、充実した3カ月でした。