Monthly Archives: May 2006
Lost in Translation
I’m the French translator for Blogathon 2006 and in translating my first of the pages, I realized how much I suck at going from English to French. I can translate French-English without a problem but in doing reverse translation, I start nitpicking over the exact word I want to use and it makes it take longer than it would going the other way.
This is why I don’t go off on tangents about how one translation of the Bible is inherently better than another — each translation bears the biases of the translator.  Granted, I can read Koine Greek and Biblical Hebrew so I can see some of the inside jokes and nuances which get lost in translating the Scriptures into English. I guess this is why we have Bible commentaries?
Protected: Observing Grief (XIV)
Protected: Observing Grief (XIII)
Observing Grief (XII)
I talked to my mom today. The “Celebration of Life” went well and she sent me some scans of the pages, including a poem that my cousin Sari wrote and gave at the service. The picture of my Opa on the cover is bringing me to tears because it’s a reminder that he is indeed gone.
I’m wishing that I could have gone to the service on Saturday but I kind of had to choose one or the other and Oregon will be when the whole family gets together, so I chose that. It’s still just really breaking me up now because now I have reminders that my grandfather has passed and it’s not just something distant.
I knew the tears would come — I just didn’t know when.
Credo
Speaking of Faith has a feature on the creeds where they replay a conversation with Jaroslav Pelikan, the late Lutheran-turned-Orthodox church historian. I’m listening to it and I *HIGHLY* recommend it.
One point I love: that a wonderful thing about the creeds is that worshippers in Phillipines say the same words in their worship as I do in Montana. It’s why I am very much a lover of traditional liturgies (and would be Eastern Orthodox if I wasn’t Lutheran) — it is such an amazing thing to realize that I worship in union with my brothers and sisters all over the world.
My Current Lullaby
I’ve been listening to the songs by the group “Wild Mountain Thyme” on Napster. They do Irish and Scottish drinking songs which both cheer me up and alternately make me cry (depending on the song). The song that’s stuck in my head these days as I fall asleep is this one…
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.
Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclouds rend the air;
Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,
Follow they will not dare.
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.
Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,
Ocean’s a royal bed.
Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep
Watch by your weary head.
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.
Many’s the lad fought on that day,
Well the claymore could wield,
When the night came, silently lay
Dead in Culloden’s field.
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.
Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet e’er the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.
Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be King
Over the sea to Skye.
OK… a little on the bloody side (it is about Bonnie Prince Charles escaping to the Isle of Skye and the Battle of Culloden — it’s a Scottish thing) but it’s a comforting tune.
The song “Wild Mountain Thyme” is also liable to make me cry these days as well…