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What does 51 actually celebrate? As far as I can tell, the number signifies a triple 17 on a dartboard and an area in Nevada best avoided. Not much to work with.
So I went looking elsewhere. I turned to the 51st Psalm.
Psalm 51 is King David’s raw, unguarded prayer after confronting his sins with Bathsheva. A plea for forgiveness that sits at the heart of Jewish liturgy on repentance. Many of the phrases we recite on the High Holy Days trace directly back to this psalm. But one verse stopped me completely:
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
לֵב טָהוֹר בְּרָא לִי אֱלֹהִים וְרוּחַ נָכוֹן חַדֵּשׁ בְּקִרְבִּי
Lev tahor bera li Elohim, v’ruach nachon chadesh b’kirbi.
Those words are not just text to me. They are a melody. I used to sing them on Friday nights with friends at Leeds University. Twenty years old, no idea what lay ahead, just the warmth of Shabbat and the easy assumption that the future was wide open. Reading them now at 51, with PSP as my daily companion, they land very differently.
I want to sit with both halves of that verse, in reverse order.
Renew a steadfast spirit within me. PSP is progressive and unrelenting. That is its defining cruelty. So far I have weathered it with a spirit that remains, most days, intact. But the road ahead will be harder. There will be more losses, more adjustments, more days when the gap between who I was and what I can do now feels unbridgeable. At 51, I am making a conscious decision to renew that steadfast spirit, not because it comes naturally, but because I know there will be days when it does not. Life has shown me enough beauty over the past year to make the fight worthwhile.
Create in me a pure heart. Here the psalmist uses a different word entirely. Not renew. Create. The distinction is not accidental. We cannot create a pure heart any more than we can cure PSP. Both are beyond human reach. A medical cure is so distant from present reality that it barely registers as a near-term hope. But a pure heart, that at least I can pray for, work towards, and hold as a standard.
Why does it matter? Because PSP brings with it more than physical decline. Anger, resentment, disengagement, a quiet erosion of connection. These are as much a part of the disease as the balance problems and the falls. I know they are waiting at the door. I hope, with His help, to hold on to the other side. Staying loving. Staying present. Staying free of the bitterness that would be entirely understandable and entirely corrosive.
The journey from 50 to 51 has brought more change than I could have anticipated. I approach 52 with honest apprehension. But that verse from a psalm I once sang without understanding has given me something to aim for. A renewed spirit. A purer heart. Not a cure. Just a direction.
That, at 51, is enough.
