Last
week an editor friend sent us two books. Wish all my friends who are editors
had the generosity of our friend Felipe, who lavishes us with the printed word
from his consideration and production for the Refugio library! (These gifts
will reach and provoke so many more readers and possible writers). The first
was Michael Reeve’s doctrinal introduction to the Triune God, which enlarges
one’s understanding of grace and the glories of God’s being. The other book
surprised and boggled my hunger for beauty in writing on things long known and
loved, presented in unique, almost unbelievable ways—about creation and
destruction, belief and unbelief, and everything imaginable in between time and
eternity. I had never heard of N. D. WILSON. His Notes from the tilt-a-whirl hooked me with its dizzying, reelingly
real story of life in relation to eternal life.
With every enticing word woven through, I wondered, in my sinful
writers’ jealousy, why I had never
imagined such art-laden metaphors. Discovered that Nathan Wilson is a very young (younger than my youngest son) Fellow of Literature and
novelist who has made his mark with children’s books which I’m dying to read
and pass on to my grandchildren. A
sample of the amusement park disequilibrium grown-up unbalancer:
This universe is a
portrait in motion, a compressed portrait in motion, a miniature, inevitably
stylized, for it is trying to capture the Infinite. The galaxies are each one
fraction of a syllable in a haiku of the Ultimate. On the human level, attempts
at taking a sunset from the small frame of the horizon and putting it on a
postcard; taking a blues riff, the rhythmic vibration of strings, and capturing
a sense of loss; marble, chiseled and shaped until it shows nobility; a cartoonist’s
frame, grabbing at six-year-old boyness, grabbing at laughter… What is the best
of all possible things: That which is
infinite, always present and undecaying. That which is both many and one. That
which is pure, ultimate, and yet humble. That which is spirit and yet personal.
That which is just and yet merciful. Yahweh, God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost...
What is the best of all possible Art. That which reveals, captures, and
communicates as many facets of that Being as is possible in a finite frame
[Notes from the tilt-a-whirl, N.D. Wilson. Nashville
Both books gifted are
about God and how he defines and hones the artist in his image-bearing
creatures who “communicate in finite frame”. They got me to thinking how trite my
own communication is, even as I try to make what I write spring from and
overflow with coram deo reality.
Despite the admonition
of Dorothy Thompson, my ancient teacher at Palavra da Vida 45 years ago, to “be
balanced”, despite my wealth of years in communicating Christian life, I still
totter and sometimes fall flat on my face. Take the tilt-a-whirl condition Paul bemoans in Romans 7:
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful
nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do;
no, the evil I do not want to do-- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I
do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that
does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right
there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another
law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind
and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a
wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to
God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to
God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin (vv.18-25).
This
conflict between the good I crave and the
evil I am has been with me since I became a person. The greatest thinker,
church-founder and writer Paul and a lopsided attempter at thinking and writing
Beth Gomes—both assert that there is no getting away from our human condition.
It is exemplified in all aspects of our life.
Take
the double edged sword of writing/translating. My heart’s desire is to write
well, be read and recognized as someone who has something to say and says it
with graceful sharpness. I do not yearn for riches or even best-seller
status—just want to share life experiences in a way that touches many others. I
want to know Jesus better and communicate with women and men, young and old,
how he touched and transformed me. His story, my stories, the stories of people
all over the world, of inner struggles and outer battles of those both extra
and ordinary, with pain and exultations (the power of his resurrection and
fellowship of his sufferings, Philippians 3:10), are all part of what I want
to write.
How
I want to write? Well, with beauty, simplicity and poignancy. Practical
stuff, the stuff of love and life—without stuffiness—and
learning out of the mouths of babes, utterances of unforgettable women and men.
What do I write? I have
several projects, and though sometimes fear there are too many irons in the
fire, have proposed five for the next few years: 1) Joint project with my
husband on Life Changes in letter to Philippians; 2) Flesh out a textbook for a
course on Women`s Issues in Counseling;
3) Write a storybook-cookbook on Refúgio cuisine, its preparation, presentation
and provision; 4) Fiction – a novel based on missionary and native Brazilian
life. This has been in my mind for twenty years and is two-thirds written—must
complete, query and submit to US publisher; 5) Fiction based on the oft-told
story of Esther, weaving Persia and its endangered Jewish diaspora population,
with women in Iran who search for meaning in the God who sought and wooed them
with an everlasting love.
Okay,
so those projects should keep my arthritic fingers dancing. But besides what I will write there is the fact of
what I am doing now. Last year I translated Kevin De Young’s Crazy Busy, which was a thirty-nine
lashes admonition for me: don’t fill my life with busy-ness. But
translation—that copycat activity which yields some cash for expenses not
covered by being a wife and/or being retired, gobbles up a huge serving of the
day. Work in translating Christian books has numerous advantages: 1) I learn
from authors admired, acquiring knowledge, understanding and abilities of men
and women with multi-perspectives; 2) I make the word available to people of
cultures different from those original authors, building bridges and
consolidating Christian lives in places I could never personally reach; 3) I
learn to discern: spiritual, intellectual, practical keenness.
After
a hundred translations to my pen, I’ve lost count, and the advantages of
plodding through books good and bad, and making them into good reading in
another language, are too many to enumerate, so, let me now mention a couple of
disadvantages. 1) I’ve already hinted
at the fact that my time is sequestered: when I’m translating someone else’s
book, I am not working on my own. No matter I’m learning, making good books available,
building bridges and consolidating Christian living as well as enhancing keen
discernment—my own production is impaired and stymied. 2) As translator, I flit
from heavy to ultra-light, from Carl Henry, Michael Horton, D. A. Carson or
Nancy Pearcey to Dave Powlison or Ed Welch or Paul Tripp or John Piper (these
last four are not light in content, but in pleasurable delight even with heavy
themes.) My own thinking can become not only Poythress’ multi-perspectival but Beth
Gomes’own multi-mixed up! 3)
Sometimes what I have translated becomes incorporated into my own work in a way
that I forget to attribute something
to an author I have worked on, and replay the text as my own. I am in constant
need of revision, to see again what I say and make worthy reference to my
predecessors.
Wish
there were paid sabbaticals for freelance writers! Along with my life companion
Lau and with Paul of old, I have learned to be content in every situation, be
humbled or exalted, in need or well-supplied (Philippians 4:11). But sometimes
I wish there were time and money to purchase more books and write my heart’s
stories instead of other people’s doctrinal teaching! I know I grow with giants
and great reads—at times I groan with the insufficiencies and inadequacies of
my own life. Yet—this is a wonderful word I must always share—I press on, I
press toward the goal, reaching forward to those things which are ahead!
In
some ways, I am the same girl who wrote eighteen chapters of her first novel at
age thirteen and never got it finished; in others, I know I am the mature woman
who continues to see writing as unfinished business, a challenge to faith, hope
and love. Pressing on is no drudgery!
Elizabeth Gomes
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