The Sacred Art of Translating
When I was a small child, I spent a lot of time walking by myself in the meadows behind my home. It was during such a time of wandering that I first encountered God. I didn’t have words then, but I did have a felt sense that I was not alone. This presence connected so deeply in me that I have continued to seek this companion every day of my life, and to offer companionship to others on their pilgrimage with the Holy.
A few weeks after that first encounter, my parents told me we would be going to church. I remember asking what it was. They told me it was where I would learn about God. I remember being very curious about whether their version would be true. Would it be the God I had met in the meadow?
Recently, I had an encounter with a person in Stillpoint’s Art of Spiritual Direction program that helped me consider the role of the spiritual director in a fresh way. In a former life, she was trained as a professional interpreter, and she was seeing similarities in these two roles that helped her. She told me that a good interpreter is actually not an interpreter, but a translator, one who listens carefully to what is spoken, and then offers it back as true to the original language and sense as possible. She described the practice of an occasional friendly interpretation: when the words of one’s language can’t quite capture the original words, an explanation of the differences is offered, but without adding meaning.
Edith Stein, the Carmelite nun, philosopher and mystic who lost her life at Auschwitz, wrote about her own treasured spiritual directors often, and had this observation: “A translator must be like a window pane, which lets in light but itself remains unseen.”
In spiritual direction, the directee’s version is what is welcomed. We trust their experience of God is real. We help them explore their own experience by asking good questions, offering back to them what we have heard, perhaps as a second language, and leaving space for silence, and for the more of their story to unfold. Thomas Keating wrote that silence is God’s first language, and it is in silence that we hear it.
One of the great gifts spiritual companions offer is our commitment not to interpret for another, but to let them hear, in the language of their own heart, their own wisdom. It is not always easy. It takes a great commitment to our own inner work. It requires tending to our own spiritual journeys. When we find ourselves wanting to give advice or to fix, we vow to explore the roots of this desire so we can return more prepared to offer open space for listening. It is a gift to learn how to hold this space and not invade it with our meaning.
I am grateful to those who have been good spiritual companions to me, those who knew I didn’t need people to interpret for me my experience of God. I give thanks for those who listened and helped me translate for myself my own sacred text, heard with the ear of my heart.
Blessings for your journey,
Elizabeth+
