PROVERBS AND PRECIOUS PROMISES

A garland of grace for your head (Prov. 1:9).

Over the last couple of weeks I had a translation deadline that forced me to ignore simple pleasures like checking my emails or posting comments on various things that were happening in the lives of friends and family. Once when I began a posting, my computer went beserk and so I went on to other activities, only to discover two days later that that unfinished comment “graced” my timeline and several people “answered” my unfinished incomplete non-thought. Talking to a friend, I had affirmed that one of the reasons we are involved in Christian counseling is that we have seen and felt more than skin-deep the need for wisdom in the body of believers who so often set off for “ministry” with the best of intentions but total lack of wisdom in practical life, even though they (we) believe the Word of God and serve the living Word with heart and mind. The Bible is full of guidelines for our path, from Genesis to Revelation. This early morning I made a pit-stop at an old favorite, Proverbs, whose God-breathed words of wisdom were collected by the wisest of men who was a total fool when it came to marriage and involvement with the idols of his culture.

The introduction delineates the raison d’etre for the book that at first glance seems to be a potpourri of antithetical sayings: attaining wisdom and discipline;  understanding words of insight; for acquiring a disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the young. When I mentioned to the friend my desire to help women in ministry deal with their being as redeemed Christians with fallen worldviews in a decadent world, I felt guilty of being like a blind person trying to lead the blind. I am certainly no better than the women and men we have observed over the years – stumbling, bungling, banging their heads and breaking their hearts while trying to love God over all and love their (our) neighbor as (our) themselves (Matthew 22:36-39 rehashing Deuteronomy 6:5).

If we deem ourselves wise, we must learn to listen and add to our learning (Prov. 1:5), and if discerning, get further guidance for understanding proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise. It’s not the understanding of ancient clichés, though the name of the game is “proverbs, parables, sayings and riddles of the wise”. It starts with the fear of the LORD –without which we will fear what man can do to us, fear our very stepping into the arena of true knowledge. This fear of the Lord goes with us at every stage of life – unless we are fools enough to despise wisdom and discipline.

Fear of the Lord touches even on our ambivalence to our forefather’s instructions: though our memory listens to the instruction and teaching of our father and mother, we often forget the garland of grace for our head and chain for our neck – we remember instead the goads to our self-esteem and fear they instilled on “what will other people think?”

In a way I was a Christian “flowerchild” wearing a crown of daisies and wishing a gold necklace of rubies, but too often I neglected Peter’s reminder that:

           His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness

            through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

           Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises,

           so that through them you may participate in the divine nature

           and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

           For this very reason, make every effort

           to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge;

          and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance;

          and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness,

          brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.

          For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure,

          they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive

          in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

          But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind,

          and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

          Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager

           to make your calling and election sure.

          For if you do these things, you will never fall,

          and you will receive a rich welcome

          into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

          So I will always remind you of these things,

          even though you know them and

          are firmly established in the truth you now have.

          I think it is right to refresh your memory

          as long as I live in the tent of this body,

 Often I forget that wisdom calls out from the streets and plazas of life and think that “nobody knows anything worth knowing.” But they do! Somebody does! He says: “If you had listened to my rebuke I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you...” (Prov. 1:23). I remember the lament of Wisdom Incarnate over Jerusalem: “How often I would have gathered you under my wings...”

God’s wisdom is not an intellectual assent – it is essentially a conjunction of mind, heart, gut feelings and action. From the injunctions to the Law in Deuteronomy (see, for example, Deut. 32:47: They are not just idle words for you-- they are your life. By them you will live long in the land...”) to the petrine, joannine and pauline injunctions to Christian living (example: Eph 1:17-18). Every son of Adam or Daughter of Eve is admonished in Proverbs 7:1-4 to use wisdom as safeguard for moral purity:

 

           Keep my words and store up my commands within you.

           Keep my commands and you will live;

(Living according to God’s word is a matter of life and death!)

           guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.

(Look at God’s teachings as the most precious of gifts)

           Bind them on your fingers;

(That is why my fingers, though sluggish, are anxious to write!)

           write them on the tablet of your heart

(this tablet is affectionate and written in living stone).

           Say to wisdom, "You are my sister,"

           and call understanding your kinsman

(if I want to be keen in wisdom I must make Wisdom my kin!)

 

The story of Wisdom began in eternity, and the Proverbs narrative (7-8) reminds one of what John narrates in the beginning of the Gospel when the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and glory (and sends us back to the beginning of time narrated by Moses in Genesis one). The entire story of learning and understanding from God in love which encircles and inspires (in spirals of involvement from the Lord of Life to human creature created in his image) is a true story that gives hope for me and any other person who realizes we have only begun to scratch the surface of learning – but He promises that we will know Him! That will be sufficient to learn and proceed to know throughout eternity!

Elizabeth Gomes

TRANSLATION -- COMMUNICATION FOR TRANSFORMATION

How many books I’ve translated from English into Portuguese? Lost count! Well, if I sit down and concentrate, I’m sure the numbers will show up on what has been one of my major jobs for the last forty years (besides being a pastor’s wife and mother of three, voracious reader, Bible student, English teacher, cook and dishwasher, sometime gardener, not such a neat cleaner and a few other mundane activities). Lots of experience still leaves me stymied with some texts. I don’t make the same mistake of translating a Christian sex education book for pre-teens (Ken Taylor’s Almost Twelve) substituting “Eustachian tubes” for “Fallopian tubes” as I did in the early seventies. I’ve had several ear surgeries since and don’t mix them there  tubes with those of the reproductive system. Bilingual from the time I learned to talk, having majored in English and Portuguese, I thought translation would be a cinch. The editor caught my mistake in the galley proof. So began my experience as book translator.

That first publishing house had a monthly meeting for translators and editors, which contributed to smoothing out and improving most texts. These meetings with peers forced us to go beyond formulaic translation, using our imagination to produce quality work.

I gained writing experience in the process—often re-writing ten times and still not getting it to “sound” right. I also became immersed in published works by established writers, learning to distinguish good writing from bad. I have always learned about writing from translation. For instance, my first attempts were with a few chapters of textbooks that classmates at seminary had trouble reading. I translated almost word for word, resulting in an incomprehensible Portuguese text that caused as much trouble as the English original. A couple of medical students asked me to put a few chapters of their dense textbook (where I had to consult a medical dictionary at almost every paragraph) into readable Portuguese, on which I labored almost a month, and they, “in gratitude, paid me with a box of chocolates”! À propos, the difference in payment between secular and Evangelical publishers is still humongous, so we do Christian books as ministry, not money making. The money made is minimal.

Translation in history

From the time of Babel in Genesis to the flames of Pentecost in Acts, language, meaning and understanding another cultural context have moved and revolutionized all people that on earth do dwell… The drama and dialogue between Joseph, his brothers and all others concerned was done through translation, because Joseph hid his true identity until his youngest brother had arrived in Egypt (Genesis 42-47).

When young Jewish noblemen were transported to Babylonian captivity, besides the well-known story of refusing the rich food of a pagan king, physical transposition and cultural translation is an even greater emphasis: “young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the language and literature of the Chaldeans... God gave them knowledge and skill in all literature and wisdom; and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams” (Daniel 1.17). The book of Daniel also relates a divine translation narrative in which the untranslated words MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN spoke of the doom of Belshazzar’s Chaldean rule (Dan 5.17-31).

Bible translation

Ever hear of the lady who wrote to a Missionary agency saying “I never got beyond eighth grade and don’t know nothing but English, but if you can spare me an English-Spanish dictionary, the Lord will help me translate the Bible into Spanish to help all those Mexicans be saved”! Translation work is as varied as the types of texts to be rendered into a new language. Guess that is why it took over seventy scholars to translate the Bible from Hebrew into Greek in second century BC. I would say that producing the Septuagint was one of the major cultural-religious feats of the interbiblical period. This translation of the Old Testament plus Apocrypha was only translated into English by Sir Lancelot Brenton in 1851. Jerome (347-420) took twenty years to translated both old and New Testaments from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek (using Origen (185-254)’s translation of that Alexandrian VXX as well as the Torah, Neviim and Ketuvim in original Hebrew, and koiné Greek for the New), producing the Vulgate translation into Latin which the Bible Christians had in hand (though only a few erudite people had access to it) for the next few centuries. The birth of the Reformation could be described as a season of translations: Erasmus of Rotterdam translated from Greek into Latin. Meanwhile, Martin Luther used Erasmus’s Greek-Latin translation to translate the New Testament into German (1522), and by 1532 had finished translating the entire Bible. This translation helped develop a standard for the German language and added several principles to the art of translation. William Tyndale lived for a time under the wing of Luther and, stimulated by the German reformer, produced the first Bible translated wholly into the English language. Then in 1611, James I of England (James VI of Scotland) ordered a new translation, which was to be accurate and true to the originals. He appointed fifty of the nation's finest language scholars and approved rules for carefully checking the results, insisting that the translation use old familiar terms and names and be readable in the idiom of the day. This was to be made readily available to be read in a land where seventy per cent of the population was illiterate and a single book cost the equivalent of a year’s salary for a humble laborer or even a tradesman! A good part of the King James Version of the Bible (1611) was actually translated by Tyndale. Very quickly translations into almost all the modern languages were being made and the Bible was spread throughout the world. Today there are translations of the Bible in over two thousand languages!

Translation as transmitting the Gospel

"Translation is the church's birthmark as well as its missionary benchmark," say Lamin Sanneh, of Yale University. "The church would be unrecognizable or unsustainable without it... Translation is profoundly related to the original conception of the Gospel: God, who has no linguistic favorites, has determined that we should all have the Good News in our native tongue." The writer of Ecclesiastes said there is no limit to the writing of books (Ecc 12.12), but that was translated from Hebrew. Without translation it could not have reached English, Portuguese, Swahili or Chinese ears, as it has for hundreds of other languages. Gods Spirit made the Good News understandable to “devout men, from every nation under heaven” – the multitude came together, were confused, everyone heard his own language spoken by ignorant Galileans (from Acts 2 throughout the entire New Testament). Some of the sharers of Glad Tidings were well-versed in  Scripture and secular literature (Paul, Apolos), but others such as Peter had been sub-literate until the Holy Spirit invested them with power to preach, teach and live out the Word. Communicating God’s Word turned people and their world upside down!

Modern translations into previously unknown languages

Several of our friends are missionaries involved in translating the Word into native Brazilian languages, the result of dozens of sending churches, seven missionary agencies, 66 translators and more than 150 native speakers directly involved in the translation process. There are two complete Bibles (in Wai-Wai  and Guarani-Mbyá) and 32 New Testaments translated into indigenous languages in our country alone. A great part of these translators have difficulty simultaneously dedicating their time to translation and evangelization – even though the only means of evangelizing will be through the written word which they produce. It usually takes over twenty years to translate the Bible to native tongues, and these may be read by a population of three hundred to three thousand people! Not what you would call a popular edition!

Modern Translation foibles

I admire those dedicated translators mentioned above, but confess falling short, by far, of their abilities and goals. Two Western languages with similar enough cultures suffice for me. I have done a couple of translations from other languages (French and Spanish, and in a pinch could try my hand in German), but English and Portuguese keep me on my toes and my arthritic fingers to the keyboard. Though English is an Anglo-Germanic tongue and Portuguese Neo-Latin, about 70% of the vocabulary used  in English texts is of Latin origin, so it’s relatively easy to translate into Portuguese – though some words with the same origin took on different or even contrasting meanings. “Exquisite” in English is uniquely marvelous, while “esquisito” in Portuguese is strange, weird. ”Pretend” in English is “make believe, fake” while in Portuguese “pretender” is synonym for “intend, plan”. Even in the same language, some things are interpreted differently: as an English teacher in Brazil, I was valued for being a “native speaker”, but when I wrote about “sharing the gospel to the natives” I was definitely politically and vocationally incorrect! The germ of this blog was planted by observing my peers’ translations – even having two cultures one can make serious mistakes, such as:

• In a book about Augustine, where the author wrote “be content” the translator wrote “be chaste” and mixed continuance with continence – though the old saint was dealing with sexual purity in his Confessions, the modern author was talking about being content (happy) in the Lord’s commandments, which surely implies all of that but was not the gist of the book in English.

• A translator used a computer-generated translation for an important document on airport enhancement and support, declaring that the suite of computers which commanded airplane traffic control  “wore a modern suit”(“usou um terno moderno”)!

• The translator must have thought of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings when he was doing The God who is there’s “the ring of truth” into Portuguese, because he translated into “o anel da verdade” -- substituting the idea of bells pealing to announce truth with a golden circle to be placed on a finger!

• For every time the original author mentioned that someone was raised in a God-fearing home,  a recent translation I saw had rendered into “levantado”, or “lifted ”, (So and so lifted his good house) --changing the sense and making the translation nonsense.

A dictionary-sized book could be written about translations that do not make sense, or contradict common sense, or lose tract of what the original author really meant to say. But as long as people are diverse, translations will be needed. I would like to see more Brazilian authors published here, because communication – whether Biblical or biological -- is clearest within the cultural context of the people being addressed. For me, translation was a beginning place, an initial interpretation of ideas to another group. It should also be my end, in whatever language I write, to communicate and interpret from one framework of thinking to another – relaying the truth of the Written and the living Word of God to people like me, in order to understand God’s eternal truth in fresh language, so that “all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7.14 NKJ).

Elizabeth Gomes

TIME ENDED, NEW TIME BEGUN...

The last few days for us were laden with history in the making. The touching description written by our son, Davi Charles Gomes is worth reading to get a feel of what is happening at Mackenzie University and in the Presbyterian Church of Brazil where he is a servant-leader.

 

Wow!  What ten incredible years!  That thought could not leave me during all of yesterday... a different day from the days this past week, different from the last more than 3,000 days. I woke up a little later (different from the dawn that marked my other days this week).  I did not arrive at the office rushed or running to a class... There were only a few loose ends that needed attention... I did not find things waiting for solutions – just friendly faces with sweet-sour expressions, half loving, half missing – at least that was the way my heart looked at my colleagues at CPAJ with whom I had invested the last ten years of institutional ministry.

The previous day had already been ridden with emotion. I had entered the classroom early to finish my graduate course in Ecclesiological Identity in Church Revitalization and Multiplication – a touching time with beloved student-pastors and my last class administered as director of CPAJ. Naturally I went overtime, thus, after saying goodbye to students, holding back my tears (both because of that strange feeling of dismissal and because of hearing pastor-students speak of the deep things of the heart) I was half an hour late as I raced toward the last meeting of the CPAJ Graduate Chamber’s farewell meeting...

At my office my brothers and colleagues were already patiently waiting for me. I began the meeting still as president. After prayer led by pastor Valdeci Santos, I said some words of thanks to my colleagues -- authentic sentiments that I shall not try to reproduce here, leaving them only in the memory of those brothers who mean so much to me. I thanked them because they were instruments of God’s grace in my life... I will tell you only two little humorous tidbits: seeking relief in humor, I thanked them because in all these years everyone managed to always leave the director "looking good on tape"; and borrowed a few lines from a song that expressed to those brethren how I felt: 

You Give Me Strength (Snow Patrol)

I choked back tears today

'Cause I can't begin to say

How much you've shaped this boy

These last ten years or more

 

My friends, we've seen it all

Triumphs to drunken falls

And our bones are broken still

But our hearts are joined until

 

Time slips its tired hand

Into our tired hands

We've years 'til that day

And so much more to say

 

You give the strength to me

A strength I never had

I was a mess, you see

I'd lost the plot so bad

You dragged me up and out

Out of the darkest place

There's not a single doubt

When I can see your faces

 

My friends, we've seen it all

When it made no sense at all

You dare to light my path

And found the beauty in the aftermath

 

Let me hold you up

Like you held me up

It's too long to never say this

You must know I've always thought 

After using pieces of the song to speak to them I asked to pray and did so thanking God for each of the brothers present, for their lives and specific moments of friendship and closeness to each of them. After the prayer, I heard some loving and encouraging words from pastor Heber Carlos de Campos. Once more resorting to humor, I passed the presidency of the faculty to the Vice-director that with my leaving would assume the direction. I did something I’ve always wanted to do since I used to watch Captain Kirk or Captain Jean Luc Piccard ("Star Trek" and "Star Trek, The Next Generation", for the non-initiated). I turned to pastor Mauro Fernando Meister and solemnly declared: "Number one, you now have command..."  All that was missing was hearing him say: "Warp speed ahead!"

After fraternal embraces, the remaining teaching body (the Graduate Chamber is composed only of Coordinators and Tenured Professors) was called in.  I saw the younger professors enter, each of which had joined CPAJ under my direction. Only two beloved colleagues were missing -- pastors João Alves and Augustus Nicodemus, both also Chamber members, absents at that moment for necessary reasons, though still near to the heart. With the faculty were also our valorous co-laborers, Sunamita, Hothir, Márcia and Rafael.  

My heart was already pressed but it was harder still when I saw them enter with a beautiful light-wooden chair -- and I could already imagine what was coming...  Pastor Valdeci explained that, according to a tradition from other reformed schools of theology, they were giving me a chair that represented my chair at CPAJ and would follow with me as a permanent  remembrance.  He read the writing on the plaque fixed to the beautiful chair: The CPAJ seal was accompanied by the following words: "Rev. Davi Charles Gomes, PhD. In honor of your work done with excellence and dedication in the direction of Centro Presbiteriano de Pós-Graduação Andrew Jumper - 2004 to 2013. Faculty - CPAJ". 

 

 

That was when it was very difficult to hold back my emotion, for my colleagues made me sit on the chair and pose for a final photo with the faculty seated and outlined around me.  Sheepish at being honored in this way, I acceded, feeling profound  gratitude for those men who I wish so much to honor at this moment of leave-taking and yet they made me agree to being honored by them in a way I normally would find very hard to accept – because the honor belongs only to Christ and these are men who always honor Christ, but who at that moment wanted to honor, in submission to Christ, a lesser brother whose greatest honor was serving them for these last ten years, and with them, serve the cause of the Kingdom of Christ and the Presbyterian Church of Brazil!

 Meeting ended, still touched by deep feelings, I went with them to a simple nearby restaurant for some moments of informal fellowship.  The beloved pastors Augustus Nicodemus and Fernando Almeida joined us.  Breaking bread in deep fellowship still carried the flavor of farewell, but in a different sense, maybe due to the choice of an everyday, unpretentious place; it also had the same delicious everyday flavor of thousands of times we ate and communed together at the table...

Finishing lunch, we walked back to CPAJ.  Some colleagues went for better coffee at a place nearby, others had various appointments.  I walked back with pastors Mauro, Jedeías, Augustus and Fernando.  I talked a while with pastor Fernando, chief of staff at Mackenzie Chancellery, who is helping pastor Augustus and me in the transition of offices and then, both of us continued to the João Calvino Building where pastor Augustus Nicodemus and all of Mackenzie’s chaplains were waiting for a transitional meeting. Of

I was kindly received by dear Augustus, who introduced me to each of the chaplains and then presented a report about the last ten years of his work as Chancellor of Mackenzie. Even though I have been close to Augustus and the Chancellorship all these years, and have regularly substituted the Chancellor in his absence, therefore knowing well the actions he has always developed, I must confess that watching the presentation left me proud of my friend, colleague and predecessor in  the position.

The presentation summed up the principal actions, challenges and victories for the Kingdom, developed in the chancellery in the last ten years, reminding me how much was accomplished, making me admire the faithfulness with which Augustus developed his ministry there, and agree with the members of the  Board of Directors of Mackenzie, that had received the same report the previous week with such appreciation and respect. I was also very happy to remember how my dear friend Augustus leaves his position with so many protests of admiration and e respect, from his superiors (The Board of Curators and The Board of Directors of Mackenzie), his colleagues at the Institute and the University and all the people he led.

Pastor Augustus Nicodemus Gomes Lopes leaves his position by his own initiative  and under protest from many. Also under my protests.  Not negative or misunderstanding  protests. He goes forth because he desires new challenges, because he hears the attractive, memory-laden song of his  pastoral-academic work, because he feels from God the tranquility that his task, by the marvelous grace of God, was faithfully fulfilled – at least this is what I clearly perceive, though I don’t  presume to speak for Augustus, but I think I know well such a feeling, for it is the way I leave CPAJ!

After Chancellor Augustus Nicodemus’s presentation, he asked each chaplain to make a ten-minute report, relating the ministries developed at the various campuses and the diverse areas of activities as chaplains of Mackenzie.  I was happy to perceive what they have done and the important ministries they have in the Mackenzie community, for the Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil, in whose name they work, and for the Kingdom under whose greater authority they minister.

At the end of the presentations, pastor Carlos Henrique (institutional chaplain), chosen by his peers to speak in their names, said words of honor and gratitude to the friend Augustus – at moments he was clearly moved...  Beautiful words of admiration, respect and regard – all clearly visible in the looks and words of all the other chaplains. They gave Augustus a beautiful gift and the opportunity to make his feelings known. Then, pastor Carlos Henrique concluded with what I believe sums up the entire sentiment. He said, “Pastor Augustus, we are very sad with your leaving..." But he then  graciously added something that did good to my heart, "...but we are also happy that pastor Davi is the one appointed to come and continue with us what you, and above all, the Lord, have done”.

All of this was day before yesterday, Thursday, May 23, 2013. After the meeting with the chancellor and chaplains, I stayed briefly with Augustus in his office and then the two of us went down to the garage, along with pastor Fernando.  I drove home, and upon arrival, went with my beloved to the home of my parents for a little more heart-comfort. Pastor Wadislau heard me tell about the day, expressed his paternal support and then we said goodbye.

With such an emotion-packed day, Adriana and I decided to stretch our night a bit and so some hard labor on the farm on which we live... With rubber boots and raincoats, wheelbarrow, shovels and spades, we spent some time and energy, spreading stones and gravel on our inside road that had been damaged by the rain of the day before. This hard work for our arms sometimes does good to the body and soul, specially when our emotions are erupting. Of course Adriana only pushed the wheelbarrow when it was empty, and I did not let her handle shovel or spade... When I got tired we went to bed, me and the one who is my reward for the work with which I fatigue myself under the sun (Ecclesiastes 9).

Back to the beginning, yesterday I got up later, at eight AM, instead of the 5:30 of previous days. At the very beginning I wrote about the friendly faces that I found upon arriving at CPAJ for my last day of work there. I entered my office finding comfort in the fact that CPAJ does not belong to me, does not even belong to my peers, to our students, to JET or IPB – it belongs to Christ, the One who is my Lord, Lord of my peers, of my students, of Mackenzie, of JET,  of IPB and of all things...  Therefore, there really is no saying goodbye, because I proceed, serving the same Lord and in the same Harvest Field.

Soon after arriving, I went to pastor Mauro’s office to call him to the office that no longer would be mine...  On returning, I found pastor Emílio Garófalo Neto, my beloved cousin, blessed pastor and multi-talented professor – he was saying goodbye after a week giving a graduate course as visiting professor at CPAJ.  A cup of coffee with Mauro, brotherly, affectionate greetings from Hothir and Sunamita, a strong hug from Valdeci... It was now time to proceed to a churrascaria for the official farewell luncheon. As we got there, what was my surprise at finding, not only all my partners at CPAJ, together, but also RE Solano Portela, a friend and Vice-president of IPB’s National Board of Theological Education, and pastor Roberto Brasileiro, friend and president of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Brasil. Only my friend Tarcízio was absent, due to family duties, and my friend Augustus, who is in Recife, preaching the gospel as always, and my friend Jedeías, in Paraíba, caring for the expansion of our church...

How pleasant to be at the table with all my colleagues!  But how difficult to hold back the heart when Mauro began his short speech, followed by speeches by RE Solano and pastor Roberto.  Each one expressed personal, affectionate words, recognizing supposed merits and qualities in me that I myself cannot recognize – word of which I am not worthy, except for the fact that we are in Christ and used by Him, which make us receive a dignity that would never exist in and of ourselves. At the same time, the three orators quieted my heart as they clearly left the message that  all this was only the end of one phase of the ministry done together in the Lord and for the Lord – our fight and our co-laboring continues! This is what, summed up, I heard from them and it comforted my heart!

We returned to CPAJ and pastor Mauro and I went to his office where we wrote the last documents that needed both of our signatures. It was time to go, and I was in a hurry because there was still a doctor’s appointment at the end of the afternoon. I spoke by phone with pastor Roberto Brasileiro, said goodbye to Sunamita and Hothir, then Rafael and Márcia, and then my friend Mauro, who now answers alone for the direction of CPAJ, decided to go with me on the last long walk leaving the institution which I had been honored to serve these last ten years. He carried the chair I had been given to take with me and we went to the parking lot, where we embraced and said words of brotherhood and friendship that will remain only between us and in our hearts. Hurriedly we said, "see you next week..."

On my way home, I spoke by phone to several of these dear ones (using the car’s hands-free device, of course, because I would not be breaking any laws...). I talked with Solano, Mauro, Valdeci and Jedeías, and also talked with Sunamita. Arriving at home I found the tenderness of Adriana, of my sons Daniel and Rafael, my parents, Wadislau and Elizabeth and my brother Daniel.  Every one of them was waiting to hear about this last day and encourage and comfort me: it was celebration and emotion.

Then, before going to sleep, I thought about sharing this narrative with those that might be interested – I decide I would write this in my blog.  More than just sharing the story, I desired an opportunity to honor and thank the many people who have been part of my story, doing this on my terms, in a written register, in this transitional moment. 

I shall have three rest-days next week, then we have a short national holiday.  I will be speaking at the Fiel Jovem conference during next weekend. Next Monday, June 3rd., I will be with Augustus celebrating his ten years in the Chancellery with thanksgiving to God and then being installed as the XIII Chancellor of Mackenzie Presbyterian University. The thanksgiving and installation ceremony will take place at noon of that day

If you are reading this report, do not seek or see it more than a mere expression of a grateful heart to God, full of affection and emotion, ready for the new challenges, but most of all, depending on the grace of the Lord!  This grace makes me lift my voice in gratitude for the many people who have blessed me and have been my companions in the marvelous adventure of living coram deo! 

To Him be glory, power and honor, always!

Davi Charles Gomes
Mogi das Cruzes, May 25th, 2013

_____________________________________________

To God, my gratitude, for brethren and coleagues...

• for my wife and children: Adriana, Rafael and Daniel;
• for my parents, Wadislau and Elizabeth;
• for my siblings, Deborah and Daniel;
• for my extended family, Joarez and Marisa, John, Márcia, Flavio, Bianca, Andrea, Deborah and Claudio;
• for my nephews: Matthew, Felipe, Timothy, Leticia, Davizinho, Nicoli, Ruth, Jonathan, Luca;
• for my local church and  colleagues in the session: Wadislau, Heber, Alderi, Márcio, David and Rinaldo;
• for pastor Roberto;
• for JET, the present one and the two previous ones;
• for Solano, Eli, Jaime, Damócles;
• for CRIE: Eliezer, Solano, Ludgero, Roberto;
• for the Curators and the Board at Mackenzie;
• for chancellor Augustus;
• for the administrators at Mackenzie: Mauricio, Solano, Anaor, Jose Paulo; Wallace; Benedito and Marcel;
• for my co-workers at CPAJ: Sunamita, Andrea, Marcia, Hothir and Rafael,
• and, today, especially for my brothers, partners -- my pares:

Alderi,

Augustus,

Daniel,

Fabiano,

Heber,

Heber Jr,

Jedeías,

João Alves,

João Paulo,

Leandro,

Mauro,

Tarcízio,

Valdeci.

 

1989

History in the making has always been part of my mental-emotional makeup. A legacy from parents who tried to relate whatever was happening in our lives with what was thought, said or happened in the past, from grandparents who made sure that we heard the stories of Pilgrim family arriving to Massachussetts in the days of Cotton Mather, participating in the Revolutionary War that gave birth to the USA in 1777, active builders of the nation and economy through thick and thin, a grandmother, daughter of a German immigrant who came soon after the Civil War to Richmond, Virginia, and became chief (?) of police, while she, exemplary Christian mother, raised twelve children alone during the Depression under the shadow of an absent actor-artist-landscape architect husband.

So when I was not yet thirteen I read the newspaper headlines on August 13, 1961 about erecting of the Berlin Wall and wrote in my diary: “War! The war between Communism and the West has erupted. I most surely will become another Ann Frank, though there are no secret annexes in our Goiânia apartment, and presently Brazil still favors the United States…”

My historical perspectives were always present, but in an impossible potpourri of fact, fiction, legend and wanna be “crazy creole samba” (a humorous song about the mélange of Brazilian history invented in the early 1960’s). I read Orwells’s “1984” that year. When today I see the ubiquitousness of surveillance through computers, I know that the prophecy: “Big Brother is watching you” has come to pass more thoroughly than anyone could have imagined.

1989 is the title of this essay. A great year for me and my family in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, when Lau was finishing his work at CCEF. I changed jobs (from Assistant Librarian at Elkins Park to office manager-assistant to a dear friend, freelance editor, inserting words of marvelous hymns to music for Great Commission Publications, thus being a tiny part of the making of a great hymnal, “editor” for a computer service company that served the US Navy, and, during the summer, English Instructor at American Language Academy on the beautiful campus of Beaver College (where Edith Schaeffer had studied years before). The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Six countries from the Soviet Union declared independence. And I got a job at ALA. I had always taught English, from the time I was a teenager in Porto Alegre, but teaching international students in 1989 was a continual history lesson for me. Students came from China (one from Beijing, one from Hong Kong – with the same language written in classic characters but spoken in entirely different ways, contrasting world views and dreams of freedom or foreseeing nightmare of Hong Kong`s return to the dominion of Mainland China). My mother had made her own historic-dream-pilgrimage to China and several Far Eastern countries with OMF supporters[1] and had been on Tienamin Square a week before the Massacre of June 4^th, 1989. Now she was before my eyes, a bright and beautiful girl hosted by a Jewish-American woman with international ties to human rights organizations. I wanted to know Mei better, tell her story – and was forbidden.

There were several Muslim students: the son of one of the ruling sheik`s concubines from Saudi Arabia, who, when his car got totaled in Philly, had it shipped to Arabia to be revamped at the palace mechanic`s. A Turkish young man who timidly declared: “Mrs. Gomes, you teach with love and beauty, reminding me of my mother, who is a teacher in Istambul”. A Yemini who said that his grandfather was a Berber from the desert, but his father a government official.

Then my Israeli student, whose cousins grew up and live in New York. Yoram wanted to become an American like them, but had family loyalties with his Israeli parents who were important to the Jewish nation (and I was reminded that Benjamin Netanyahu attended Cheltenham High where our son Daniel was studying).

A Spanish student scored high on every test and demonstrated ability and drive, letting me know English was important for his future career as lawyer and possibly politician. I do not doubt he became a man of great leadership in Spain, though there is no way to verify, because even his name flees my mind today.

There were Korean and Japanese students – Evangelical Christians, Buddhists, Shintoists and agnostics of many stripes. My Swiss, German and French students were world class from the European Union, but this American raised in Brazil kept wondering about their true historical origins. Silly conjectures.

Several Latin American students – from Peru, Venezuela, Colombia and of course, Brazil (one, daughter of a famous news anchor in Venezuela, another, of a shrimp magnate, still another, a child of a well-heeled bureaucrat) and their dreams. Oh, the dreams were everything from becoming an international singer or actor (I sort of envision one of the girls as Shakira before she was famous!). My African and South Asian students ranged from the daughter of a government official from the Côte d`Ivoire to a Methodist Thai industrialist`s daughter. Each student let me know piecelings of their stories – but none were as poignant as those non-commented by emigrants from the USSR. An older student— in her thirties— economist in Kiev who was beginning to learn about her Jewish heritage through the sponsors for her family`s arrival in Pennsylvania, weeks before Ukraine left the Soviet Union. She took her own sandwich to lunch for meals, because for the first time in her life as a free person, she was submitting to kosher laws. Another Russian engineer got a job at TJMax and was enjoying hard work and results of her labor in a non-demanding job free from soviet directives.

At the end of our two months, I invited the students to my home for dinner. They contributed five dollars apiece for the meal and arrived to help prepare it – my kitchen was teeming with people of all stripes, who also invaded the yard to help mow the lawn and sweep the porch. Not pandemonium — but only pan, because demonia they were not – they were all image-bearers of the Lord of the Universe. I had shared only English grammar, pronunciation and practical usage – not any of the story of redemption – but hoped that when those who would return to the country of their origins, as well as those who had adopted a new land, would perceive that Christ motivated my teaching.

So, as I remember the year of momentous historical develpments in the world ending the Eighties, most of all I remember the histories, the stories, of people of all nations whose lives touched mine, and hopefully, that my insignificant life, dubbed with eternal meaning, had touched them with grace.

 

Elizabeth Gomes

WASHING FEET AND POLISHING BOOTS

One of the notable Holy Week activities in which the new pope participated was the footwashing ceremony, where the international prelate removes his robes, takes a basin, washes and kisses the feet of prisoners. Pope Francis requested that this time women convicts be included. “This could be an indication that this pope favorably considers the ordination of women”, said a news commentator.

Washing the feet of people who are seen as marginal and undeserving has nothing to do with women’s ordination to the priesthood. With some preface comments, John tells the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples: 1) Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. 2) The Passover Seder was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3) Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; SO... he got up from the meal, wrapped a towel around his waist, poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet...” John 13.1-16. The story touches our hearts with the humility of the King of Kings hours before he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. The dialogue between Peter and Jesus was so down to earth: “You’ll never wash my feet!” “If I don’t, you have no part with me”. “Then wash me from hear to toe!” It shows how disciples, even today, misunderstand the meaning of servanthood. Instead of all-or-nothing in giving of ourselves in service to the Lord and His children, we more often envision all-or nothing as “I want all the blessings God has for me and none of the discomforts of being faithful to His calling!” In case (for sincerity or show) we actually participate in a footwashing ceremony, we certify that those whose feet will be washed previously had their baths and will be ever grateful for our goodness! Peter was going to deny Christ hours later, and Jesus knew it. Judas had already betrayed Jesus, and the Lord pointed out “The one who dips his bread with me” without negating his participation in the Last Supper.

Once a lady we knew bragged, “My spiritual gift is humility”. I recounted to myself the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control), noting that humility is not a fruit but an order: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” explained a few verses before: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4.10, 6).

Last Saturday, while we were talking on the verandah with our adult children, Adriana brought out a box of shoeshining equipment and a couple of pairs of boots which she sturdily put on and our eldest son began to polish boots, hers and his. I jokingly said, “Wow, I haven’t had my boots shined sine Lau bought them for me five years ago!”, and Davi insisted I bring them to him to be shined. I sat watching that brilliant, talented man of God dirtying his hands as he applied black polish, taking a brush and then a soft, clean  rag to the leather and working an almost mirror-like shine into those boots. Often when he and his father talk about deep spiritual and intellectual issues, one of us does some menial, repetitive task as the conversation goes on, but at that moment that shoeshining reminded me of Jesus washing the dusty feet of the disciples.

Years ago, when Davi was very little and we were in Garanhuns, in the Northeastern region of Brazil, where Lau was preaching at a youth camp, a boy came to the porch asking if we had shoes to shine. Davi got together all the shoes in our family and gave them to be shined (and paid for by us), meanwhile talking about Jesus and sharing a Gospel of John with the older boy. That boy ended up accepting Christ as his Savior and later went to school and ended up becoming a pastor. The story was published in Evangelizing Today’s Child, the periodical for Child Evangelism Fellowship, in the late Eighties. Davi was only five, but had a penchant for shining shoes and sharing the Gospel.

My mind reaches out to Ephesians 6.15: “with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace” which describes the way Davi and other of God’s servants develop their walk, ready to stand their ground, and after having done everything, stand firm in full armor. Serving God means preparing, which starts with divesting ones’ self of fancy clothes and sophisticated apparatus,  getting out a towel and basin, or boot polish, brush and rags, and getting to work. Once a teacher at our seminary commented: “If your feet are well-shod and your hands are clean and beautiful, you will be elegant, no matter how simple your clothes”. May I continue to learn the lessons of beautiful feet that bring glad tidings! (À propos, Davi got his blackened hands cleaned with kerosene remover before getting a long bath. Next morning he was ready, serving our church, sitting on the floor with the little kids and then preaching with power to God-hungry grownups. I wore my freshly-shined black boots).

.Elizabeth Gomes

WHEN CHILDREN OF GODLY PARENTS GO AWRY

Luther's family

Recently a pastor’s wife introduced me to a thought-provoking blog (Marc5Sola) for Christian parents today: “Top ten reasons our kids leave church” – with the horrific information that 70% of  Evangelical kids leave the church when they leave High School! Years ago a friend told me she was absolutely sure her children would be model Christians – the Bible guarantees, according to Proverbs 22:6, that if we train them in the way they should go, even when they get old they will not stray, she declared. I don’t know how her kids turned out, but looking at the situation of Evangelical leaders all over the world, we have to admit that many of their children are far from the straight and narrow (or whatever you call the ideal Christian life). Recently, the world was shocked when the son of a renown minister murdered his father and mother after the evening church service when dad refused to lend him the family car. He attacked his dad, and when mom tried to wield the knife from the drunken or drugged twenty-something-year-old, fatally stabbed her as well.

A Christian leader told me that almost eighty per cent of the pastors of his denomination have grown children who have either scandalized or left the church where their parents are presented as examples of doctrine, life and learning. Many prominent pastors have changed their workplace or ministry because of insurmountable family problems, though their books and sermons continue to be paradigms of ethics and virtue in the wider circles of the church.

When I consider these things, I remember an anecdote about Charles Spurgeon, who, upon seeing a visibly drunken bum saunter by, said, “There, but for the grace of God, go I!” There, but for God’s infinite grace, each of us sinners can only say the same. Yes, but unbelievably, God’s grace was present with the nationally known minister who was senselessly murdered along with his wife by a son he raised in love. Grace in the lives of the many Bible teachers who had to “move to another field” in order to protect or cover up their children’s malfeasance. God’s mercy when children lie, steal, do drugs, are sexually promiscuous and make terrible choices that affect their lives for years to come – God’s grace shines through broken lives, not only of those who came from bad homes and adverse situations, but those who came from good, godly homes with every stimulus to a good life and trampled every blessing of which they had partaken as children of the Covenant.

But for the grace of God I would have been a wretched rebel who screwed up big time. Oh, I was a “good girl” who knew my Bible better than many preachers, leader in our youth group and correspondent with missionaries since before I was in High School. I represented my school as “best student” and worked as an English tutor from age fourteen when I wasn’t studying, leading or reading. Sang in the school trio, youth ensemble, church choir, and solos on invitation to other churches or events. My double life hid my dream of becoming a spy so I could patriotically commit all sorts of immoralities or even crimes in the name of my country. My missionary parents’ lives were falling apart and I blamed them for their catastrophic choices – and made sure to leave them for good by marrying at age eighteen. By God’s grace, I married a godly man who loved me and we built a life on the solid Rock – but my brief pre-marriage rebellion was deep and wicked.

My husband and I look at our children with pride because they turned out much better than we had ever been. But for the grace of God – and in spite of our fumbled attempts to mold them in our own likeness. Back to the problem of lost children of godly parents, several types of problems appear with descendants who stray among God’s people. Lau sometimes uses the metaphor of bike-riding to describe them.

First, there who are those who never learned to ride a bicycle. Maybe they even sped up and down the sidewalk on their tricycles or pulling red wagons, but they never were taught to balance on a ten-speed bike. A teenager commenting on family with disciplinary issues with their pre-schoolers said, “They seem to lack basic parenting skills”. The couple still had not matured sufficiently to transmit assurance and values to their kids. But the problem of never having learned to ride a bike can easily be corrected – you can learn by practice.

I remember trying to be a bicycle acrobat – standing up, riding backwards, getting five kids on top of one two-wheeler – and acquiring my share of cuts, bruises and embarrassed falls. There are children of Christian parents who fall from their bikes, even when the parents taught them well and were close by. Falling from a bike might mean a scraped knee or even a broken arm, but a band-aid on the knee or a cast on the arm is not life-threatening. Wise parents treat the hurt, instruct and insist on safety measures, and help their child get back on the bike and learn to ride well. Falling from a bicycle is not a moral issue.

Stealing a bike is. Two or three times in the lives of our biking kids, someone took their bike and they never got it back. Now, Christian parents try to instill moral values in their offspring, and most of us start with the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments. Our family added a Bible memorization plan with a verse a day – the book of Proverbs was especially effective in our home. But no matter how much biblical and moral wisdom we teach, our children are sinners who fall short of God’s glory and sooner or later will “steal a bike” – do something knowingly wrong for any one of many reasons – and try to justify or rationalize their disobedience to God’s laws. In this, too, they have their parents for teachers. Even if we never had committed any immorality, our beautiful kids have the primeval Edenic parents sinning in their genes.

The first time one of my children committed the immoral act of stealing he slipped a matchbox car into my purse, taking it home “to safety”. When I found the car in my bag and asked him where he got it, he said, “If it’s in our bag it’s ours!” He expected me to be his willing accomplice! Over the years, many times our children are tempted (and sometimes succumb) to moral issues. That was the case with Eli and his grown sons. While Samuel, “ministered to the LORD before Eli the priest”, “the sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know the LORD”. Samuel became a righteous judge and prophet, but Eli was lax and blind toward his sons, who stole “the best meat for the sacrifice and sexually assaulted the women who met at the door of the tabernacle”.  The outcome: the Ark of the Covenant fell into the hands of the Philistines and Hophni and Phineas died in battle.

Recovery in a case of stealing a bike requires much more than healing “felt hurts” or therapeutic reassurance! The letters to the churches in Asia Minor seem written for today’s situation. “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead”, the Lord says to Sardis. “Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die!” (Revelation 3.1-2 NIV). Remember where you are coming from and where you fell (what you have received and heard), repent and restore to practices of justice (repentant obedience – Revelation 3:3).

Besides the moral problem of stealing, bikers are sometimes crushed by a drunken driver or an ungoverned, wild truck – maybe even with no driver. My friend Ana is an athlete, and in her fifties she still bikes ten mile a day to and from the university where she teaches. Last year she lost a colleague, a fellow-biker run over and killed by an intoxicated driver who was never caught or punished. Some children of good – of godly parents, not just good in the sense of Harold Kushner’s “When bad things happen to good people”, for we believe: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and "There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3.23, 10) – go through tragedies that not only knock them down but smash and crush them to dust.

Debilitating disease. Terminal cancer. Severe mental illness. Unyielding depression ending in suicide. We are painfully familiar with the stories and God plays no favorites. There are no Christian clichés, no superficial comfort, no supposed “God’s promised victory” – no matter how much we’ve prayed, pleaded and interceded for them, God was silent. Some of our children find themselves in such situations. Job suffered the crushing loss of all his sons and daughters in one humungous major accident. Only it was no accident. In his sovereign mercy, God had allowed Satan to mercilessly attack everything and everyone dear to Job. Michael Horton’s “Too good to be true – finding hope in a world of hype” talks about these things, dissecting them from personal experience seen through the perspectives of the cross and the resurrection. It is a book of comfort to all who suffer great loss, and people in ministry, whether respected pastors or anonymous missionaries, are never immune. Seems that often we women, used to carrying the world on our shoulders, are particularly (though not the only ones) prone to being wiped out by the tragedies our families go through.

Whether our children don’t know how to ride, fall off their bikes, steal someone else’s bike or get dangerously run over, we are not to blame for what they do once they are old enough to fend for themselves. Lots of us get bogged down in the slough of despondency for things we cannot control or change. On the other hand, we are responsible to pray for our children since their existence began in a mother’s womb, responsible to teach and pray with them while they are being molded as little children, growing children, pre-teens and young men and women – into what God wants them to be. And pray for them after they gain independence and leave the nest – as much as we did all the early years of their life. This balance of responsibility before God and letting go of any attempt to control people or circumstances in the lives of our heirs has at times been lost, other times maintained, still other times expanded – by women and men who love God and love their children for God’s glory – in spite of ourselves.

Elizabeth Gomes

GREAT READINGS, MOVING WRITING AND MOMENTOUS BOOKS

The other day on facebook I mentioned hunger for a great read – everything in our house and library had been digested and my silent request for more good books on my Amazon wish list (or even a subscription to a couple of periodicals to keep us up-to-date – like Time or Newsweek for general splattering and Christianity Today and World and Discipleship for a Christian focus) plus the knowledge that now we have Kindle in Brazilian Portuguese – all made me covet sincerely. God did not grant an answer according to my dubious heart (Can one covet sincerely, like “sin with an authentic desire to possess thy neighbors’ books or mags or disposable income for literary purchases”? Like one can “sincerely be wrong and set in ways of error...”) – He is, after all, sovereign over all the earth as well as over my own selfish desires. Last year a dear aunt sent me a bag of good books which kept me busy for a few months. And this Christmas, my eldest son gave me a riveting Kingsolver book for Christmas.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors. Each book she spins is unique – a totally different story set in a different ambiance – my first experience with Kingsolver was the Congo of the fifties and sixties in Poisonwood Bible. Then I moved to the world of art and communist politics with Frieda Kahlo and an American hero and expatriate in Mexico of pre World War II with The Lacuna. The Beanwood Trees explored life, responsible and abandoned childhood of Native Americans of the Southwest, and now Flight Behavior weaves a beautiful tale of a woman of Appalachia whose greatest dream was to flee from everything her miserable life meant – with an incredible mountaintop experience which made her return to face and enrich her life as well as the lives of those around her. All Kingsolver’s books deal with spiritual emptiness and religious crises as well as earthy biological and sociological situations. The mountaintop experience is not conversion or even acceptance of God’s will – Kingsolver writes with the eyes of a scientist who has serious doubts about established religion, though she is immersed in religious language and lore. You can’t put a Kingsolver book down lightly – though she titles it “flight behavior”, the behavior of flight takes on many meanings and transfixes one’s vision of common country life and scientific enquiry.

In an entirely different vein are Brenda Rickman Vantrease’s historical novels like The Illuminator and the Mercy Seller, which brought to life and got me hooked on pre-Reformation situations in England and Bohemia (am still waiting to get The Heretic’s Wife which will transpose me to yet another spot and Reformer). Late Middle Ages and early Reformation days com alive in Vantrease’s well-woven, vero simile tales that read as I wish I could write my next novel – with historicity and keen theological philosophy – without committing grave errors in Biblical or historical facts.

Just watched a TV special on new writers on the bestsellers rack and can’t believe E. L. James’s Shades of Gray (fifty and other shades) gained such tremendous following. Guess part of the postmodern scene is “steamy like you’d never admit to reading in polite society a few years back”.

Back to the idea of writing, I guess I enjoy reads like Lya Luft’s, Isabel Allende’s and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ – that’s the Latin American writer crying out within me. Can’t forget Americans like Alice Walker and Willa Cather or Pat Conroy and Louisa May Alcott or Hawthorne and Hemingway and Scott Fitgerald. Or Brits like P.D. James and Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie – so many diverse and divergent good writers I couldn’t begin to list what touched me – and that without the divine element of Christian writing.

I dream of writing good reads that portray a Christian worldview regarding tarnished fallen humanity vis a vis exquisite, unmerited God-mercy. Do something like Jerry Jenkins did for premillenial Bible prophecy in the Left Behind saga – in a Biblically Reformed and Christ-centered story of love and redemption for today! Pretty hard task to fulfill – especially due to the fractures and fallenness of this unworthy writer with unruly yearnings and undisciplined writing life.

Why should fantastic stories such as Rowling’s Harry Potter et al or Stephanie Meyer’s Twighlight saga gain larger followings than C. S. Lewis or even Tolkien, who also wrote fantastic fantasies with eternal values? I admit I enjoyed Harry Potter and the idea of good witches outwitting the bad is attractive – but even Madeleine L’ Engle fell short of gaining the popularity of today’s neo-pagans. A few years ago a Christian story gained the bestseller status with The Shack, but besides its psychological soul-searching after a tragic murder and mixed and muddled theology of the Trinity to gain such a following, there wasn’t too much that stayed permanent. No one today is recommending it as “you’ve got to read this”. Which brings me to my motives in reading and writing, and my unrealistic yearnings.

The goal of writing great fiction that touches many readers for eternity is somewhat unrealistic because my own ideas of truth are often muddled by the reality of Romans 7:19-22, which, thank God, ends in “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” but has all the interim experience of “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 woman I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”(NIV). Whether in writing about life and death or living around writing and not saying what I really mean, a lot that I know is good and have learned throughout life is annulled by my human condition – precisely the condition that produces good writing!

Then, my aim is also askew. In my life purpose, I declare that, like the phenomenal Christian Paul, this un-phenomenal woman’s goal is “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me” (Philippians 3:10-12 NKJ). But in practice, I’m not that great about wanting to know Christ better. Maybe attracted to power (especially of words!), but “fellowship of his sufferings and conformity to his death” sound awfully masochistic! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24). I do subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith declaration of humankind’s principal aim in life: “Love God and love one’s neighbor” (as in Mark 30:31). And I discover that for all practical purposes, I’ll never be a great Christian writer – just an earthbound common, everyday Christian who reads, breathes, thinks, has doubts and epiphany-like joys, loves, sometimes despises, often is bewildered – and writes trying to keep in mind the Word that was made flesh as I flesh out words, sometimes of wisdom, more often of folly, always trying to read “what God hath wrought”.

Elizabeth Gomes