Translators
a sermon preached by Tony
Lorenzen
before the
Ministerial Fellowship Committee of the UUA
Friday, March 23,
2007
ÒWhat
are they doing!Ó He exclaimed, scrambling around to pick up the discarded
orders of service off the ground.
ÒIt contains the name of God! Ha-Shem! No! Stop!Ó But it was
useless. Too many people were
dropping the papers as they left the Princeton Chapel. There was no way to stop
the desecration. He was a student
from Jewish Theological Seminary and too many students from Princeton, Holy
Cross, Saint MaryÕs, and Harvard Divinity School didnÕt understand that the four
letter name of God in Hebrew not only couldnÕt be spoken aloud it couldnÕt be
thrown away. It was supposed to be buried.
I
witnessed this event the year I represented Harvard Divinity School in an
interfaith program called Seminarians Interacting. Over the course
of an academic year, at various retreat weekends, I soaked in the people, the
worship, and the new ideas. I was
also challenged – sometimes directly and forcefully for my
Christian-ness, my white-ness, my male-ness. And yet I loved it. Others did
not. Some students involved with
Seminarians Interacting had a difficult time encountering religious others.
I
believe the reason I enjoyed Seminarians Interacting and the reason I am still
drawn to inter-faith activity today, indeed one of the reasons I, like many
others, find my spiritual home in the Unitarian Universalist Association, is
that I am a translator.
I
was raised Catholic. Christian was my first spiritual language. Religions and spiritual traditions are
like languages. The more we learn
to speak, the more comfortable weÕll be as we travel about in the world. As Diana Eck, professor of World
Religions at Harvard has said, ÒIf you know one religion, you donÕt know any.Ó
Just
as English speakers can get by in our American culture knowing only English, so
too is it easy sometimes to relax in the comfort of the spiritual tradition
within which we were raised, be it Christian or Jewish or Muslim, or
Humanist.
Just
as I donÕt feel superior because I am native English speaker, I donÕt feel
superior because I am a native Christian speaker. I sometimes feel ignorant that I am not fluent in Spanish or
Vietnamese or French or Islam or Hinduism.
I
grew up in a Christian setting reading the Bible. When a Muslim mentioned the
Koran or a Jewish friend the Torah, I had a corresponding reality of the Bible
in my own religious world to which I could relate the concept. I was baptized and had a confirmation
in the Catholic Church. I learned
about bar and bat mitzvahs and when I got to Harvard Divinity
School, the coming of age ceremony for Mescalero Apache girls. When people
spoke of their religious beliefs and practices, I understood. I had religious beliefs and practices
of my own. I had analogues in my
own religious world and I translated as best as I could what they were telling
me from their religious world into mine.
And
yet, analogous matching of the pieces of someone elseÕs tradition or practice
to something in oneÕs own is but the first step in understanding religious
otherness. ItÕs valuable if we continue on the road to a genuine understanding
of who others are religiously. Translation is a complicated business and
religion is not just a spiritual language, but the art of how we live, in a
sacred manner, in this world.
The
online Babel Fish Translation tool at www.altavista.com
gives us some insight into just how difficult translation can be, both for
language and religion. Babel Fish
is a great tool for quick, brief translation, but Babel Fish is a computer
program and it doesnÕt understand the nuances of language such as usage,
context, idioms, and other things that make language art. For example, if one were to type the
following sentence into Babel Fish for translation from English to Spanish:
ÒDo unto others
as you would have them do to youÓ
Babel
Fish gives you:
ÒHaga a otro pues usted hizo que hicieran a ustedÓ
Translating back to English from Spanish Babel Fish gives you:
ÒDo to others because you caused that
they did you.Ó
Close, but not exactly a cigarette, as we almost say in English.
Babel
Fish is doing Formal Correspondence translation, mechanically reproducing the
vocabulary, features and form of the source language into the receptor
language. As you can see, it sometimes misses the mark. It leaves out the art, the music - the
poetry of the language.
For
poetry in translation you need Dynamic Equivalence Translation, where the
meaning of the original language is carried over into the receptor language. Inez Talamantez, my teacher in Native American
Religious Traditions at Harvard, taught us that an that Apache doesnÕt see
Apache religion, an Apache just sees life. Just
as you cannot directly translate a poem from one language to another without
creating a new poem, a new work of art, you canÕt translate religious
experience from one person or one religion to another without taking into
account the unique rhythm and meter, flow and music of the sacred and the holy
that makes that person and tradition unique.
Malcolm
Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big
Difference says that in the spread of
epidemics, ideas, and movements translators play a key role. According to Gladwell, translators Òare
the ones who make it possible for innovations to overcome...they take ideas and
information from a highly specialized world and translate them into a language
the rest of us can understand.Ó [1]
Unitarian
Universalists are such people as Gladwell speaks of when he defines translators. Francis David was such a person
at the Diet of Torda in 1568 where his preaching converted a king and a people
to Unitarianism. John Murray and Hosea Ballou were such people boldly preaching
universal salvation. William Ellery Channing was such a person preaching
Unitarian Christianity in Baltimore in 1819. Olympia Brown and Antoinette Brown Blackwell were such
people, opening the pulpit and ministry to women. Roy Wood Sellars was such a
person when he drafted the Humanist Manifesto in 1933.
Our
faith is a faith forged by theological and spiritual innovators brave enough to
create a new work of art out of old forms that no longer served. Now it is our
turn to be translators, carrying the living tradition forward. I am reminded of
pictures from the United Nations where a person is speaking in their native
language and the rest of the room is listening through earpieces, each in their
own native tongue. Somewhere there
is a translation center and when it comes to religious diversity and
understanding, with our six sources of the living tradition, we Unitarian
Universalists are it. The world
needs us and we have a valuable message to bring and a valuable role to
play. When war threatens constantly
over the difference between the Hebrew shalom and the Arabic salaam,
we are needed. When civil
liberties are threatened over interpretations of Canon and Koran, we are
needed.
This is not the time to demean anotherÕs humanism or turn up oneÕs nose at anotherÕs Christianity. This is a time to recognize our common Unitarian Universalist bonds of reason, freedom and tolerance. This is a time to strengthen our covenant to affirm and promote the inherent dignity and worth of every person so we can promote justice, equity and compassion both within and beyond our church doors.