Translations can lead to no good.

When American movies are marketed overseas, naturally, their titles require translation. So if you want to see "Leaving Las Vegas" in Hong Kong, look for "I'm Drunk and You're a Prostitute" in Cantonese. Perhaps you remember "Field of Dreams" fondly. When "Imaginary Dead Baseball Players Live in My Cornfield" shows up on the marquee, you're all set. Looking to watch the movie about the pig named "Babe"? Ask for "The Happy Dumpling-To-Be Who Talks and Solves Agricultural Problems."

For me, the same kinds of problems result with theological translations. Words such as "God," "prayer," "grace," "spirituality,"--the list gets long--have well-defined meanings in American culture. Ask the guy who cuts your hair, ask your next door neighbor, ask your bank teller or your cousin from Detroit or the parish priest in town or the person next to you in the drivers' license line. They know what the words mean; they mean more or less what the dictionary says they mean. (over)

For some Unitarian Universalists--for many Unitarian Universalists--it feels important to claim these words. So a lot of us change the meaning and forge right ahead: "God" becomes a benevolent universe or the beauty of a butterfly, "prayer" becomes digging in the garden or some such, "grace" becomes something like good luck, and "spirituality" an old-fashioned sense of well-being. All perfectly fine religious concepts.

But I worry. I enjoy and respect precision in language because I like to communicate with all kinds of people both within and outside Unitarian Universalism. So I take the minority view and use the word "gardening" for "gardening" and "butterfly" for "butterfly" and leave it at that. Why translate? Especially when it can lead to dead baseball players in our cornfields.

Jane Rzepka, 1/4/99