“Translation is how we hand on faith to our children.”
– Kenda Dean, Almost Christian, p. 98
As anyone who’s ever used an online translator can tell you (i.e. any teenager with a foreign language requirement), translation is an art – not an exact science. Think about all that is required to translate from one language to another. In both languages we need a mastery of vocabulary, spelling and grammar, not to mention cultural idioms. Even then, it’s often easier to read a new language than to speak it. It’s certainly safer. Books don’t talk back.
Add the human dimensions of accents and dialects, and the complications rise exponentially. Translation requires a quality of listening we’re not accustomed to anymore and a slower pace to conversation than anyone in New Jersey is willing to tolerate. When trying out a new language, we tend to think more before we speak. We ask the other person to slow down so we can make sure we understand their perspective before risking a potentially foolish or even offensive response. Risks are unavoidable, and mistakes are inevitable. Many times, rather than risk dying of embarrassment, we try to avoid speaking at all.
It’s not surprising that so many of us end up resorting to pantomime instead (behaviors I’ve noted in my own parish’s mission trips, incidentally. Mission may not be a trip, but mission trips do offer ample opportunity to practice the translation skills we need just as desperately back home.) When words fail us, we use our hands. We communicate with our eyes. We try to make our intentions and actions as clear as possible. No wonder Kenda Dean in Chapter 5 of Almost Christian names translation as a skill for transmitting faith – not only across cultures but across generations as well. The good news is that what we do out of necessity may actually be more effective in sharing the Gospel of Jesus’ unconditional, self-giving love than even our most careful words.
It certainly helps to explain the sense of inadequacy many adults feel when it comes to sharing their faith with adolescents in particular. Those who feel ill-equipped to speak the language of the Christian faith themselves – either from lack of familiarity or lack of practice – may also feel ill-equipped to speak the language of today’s teenagers. Intimidation at the technology our teens have mastered, lack of interest in the cast of characters inhabiting the pop culture landscape, as well as the comfort level we enjoy with our own use of adult jargon may leave us stymied when it comes to sharing what is closest to our hearts with our young people.
Perhaps if we allowed ourselves the grace we allow ourselves when speaking a new language, we might find our role of witness a little easier to bear. Witness, after all, does not begin with speaking. It starts with what we notice, what we hear. We might begin our “missionary work” by honing our ability to listen rather than by filling up the anxious silences with more words. (For as Dean rightly notes, “God does not send out a few teenagers in a church van to represent Christ in the world on behalf of the church; God sends the whole church.”) We might then focus on our non-verbal behavior – what our actions and reactions say even louder than our words.
Eventually, of course, we are called to speak. It may help to remember that risks are unavoidable, and mistakes are inevitable. But is love – even divine love - communicated any other way? Love, by definition, involves vulnerability and risk. In sharing the love of the One who risked everything for us, perhaps the medium is inseparable from the message. We are a resurrection people. That means there’s life even after dying of embarrassment. Thanks be to God.
The Reverend Emily Griffin
Associate Rector, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church - Pennington
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