Episode 130 - Purple Magnolia

I’m sat in my parent’s garden as I write this, and as I do, I’m facing my Mum’s Magnolia tree. I say tree, it’s still in a plant pot, so think less towering monolith and more skinny bush. It’s currently flowering, great big flowers nearly the same size as the tree (that’s hyperbole), flowers which are distinctly purple in colour. This makes me question if anything I’ve ever learnt through my numerous trips to B&Q was in fact true. It also leads me to conclude that either the guys in the naming department at Dulux once played a practical joke that got way out of hand, or that Magnolias come in a variety of colours. A quick google search confirmed that my latter suspicion was true. Not just so, but to the extent that if you use the word Magnolia to refer to colour in different countries, there will be a very different understanding of what the colour that you’re referring to is.

This raises a large question; why on earth would anyone choose to name a colour after a flower which has a variety of different colours? Seriously though, why? Well, for all of my distracted googling, I couldn’t find an answer. I can only assume that the person who named it was unaware of this fact. It does seem like quite a large oversight, but to be fair, after seeing a whole bunch of Magnolia trees with white flowers, why would you think that there was anything different? (Yes, I did just refer to the colour Magnolia being synonymous with white, that’s because it is, and life would be much simpler if we didn’t have five million words for the same colour). 

It’s funny how it seems an obvious possibility with hindsight and yet such an easy assumption to fall into. I wonder too how quickly I fall into making such assumptions which lead to unnecessary confusion. Whether it’s being too quick to judge someone and put them in a box or not really listening to what someone is saying before making my reply. Or most of all, when I see only parts of what God wants to reveal to me and I try to make it the whole. When instead of searching for deeper understanding or waiting for further instruction, I get carried away and wrongly fill in the blanks myself. That’s when I get confused about what God is doing in my life because instead of listening, I try to second guess Him, forgetting that I can’t see what He can see and that not all Magnolias are Magnolia.

Episode 129 - The Day God Was Silent

Of all the celebrations throughout the year, Easter has to be my favourite. I love different aspects of all the others, but the simple matter is that Easter is the most important. It’s the day that we remember all that God has done for us; making a way for us to know Him by His son taking on the punishment for our mistakes by dying on a cross. It’s the centre point of history and the point around which history revolves. It’s the point at which the greatest most impossible victory was won for us. There are three days of the Easter celebration; Easter Friday when Jesus died, Easter Sunday when Jesus rose again and Easter Monday when we all get a day off work (that last one was a joke, but a joke with a purpose). 

The third day is Easter Saturday, a day that we often forget about, but it’s a day that means a lot to me, a day that is sometimes referred to as the day that God was silent. You see, in the middle of this most incredible event that sits in the middle of time itself, there is a day in which nothing seems to happen. Jesus has died but not yet been raised to life. And there is a day where God seems to do nothing. At the very centre point of time, everything stops. Jesus’s followers have just seen one of their best friends killed for a crime He didn’t commit. And in the midst of coping with that loss they have to come to terms with what seems to be an even greater and more perplexing loss. 

The person they (correctly) thought was the messiah had been killed without achieving all that the messiah came to do. They had poured their lives and souls into this truth and now He appeared to be defeated and they appeared to be wrong. And God said nothing. And they could be forgiven for thinking that God was doing nothing either. Yet, in the middle of all this, God was working out the salvation for all mankind. He was silently doing the most incredible thing in human history, turning what seemed to be its greatest defeat into its greatest victory. Between Jesus’ death and resurrection, He was doing everything that had to be done to pay the price for our mistakes. And humanity had no idea.

One of my favourite stories in the Bible is that of Balaam’s Ass, largely because it involves a talking donkey. It’s an incredible story of awe and wonder telling the incredible lengths God goes to to protect the children of Israel. But for me the most incredible thing about the whole story is not the talking Donkey, but that for all the wonderful things God does, the Children of Israel are completely unaware of them all and were intended to be so. Life for them just continued as normal, they didn’t even know of the threat let alone the lengths God went to to keep them safe. I often wonder how much God must do for me without me even knowing.

There have been many times in my life where I have felt completely overwhelmed and in over my head, where I have cried out to God and He seemed to be silent. But looking back, those times were when He did some of the most incredible things, I just couldn’t see them. I imagine that for many of us life in the Pandemic must feel like a time of Gods silence, but whenever it does remember what God did nearly 2000 years ago at the very centre point of time.

Episode 128 - Found in Translation

There is a poem by Pablo Neruda which I have always loved. It’s called; Tonight I can Write. Well actually that’s not exactly correct. It’s really called; Puedo Escribir. You see, Pablo Neruda was Chilean and as such, he wrote in Spanish. This fascinates me. That I can read a work of art in a language it wasn’t written and yet still see its beauty. It also raises an important question; who is to credit for its beauty, the author or the translator? The poem was translated by William Stanley Merwin, who was a celebrated poet in his own right, and yet is rarely thought of when considering this great work of poetry. Perhaps rightly so. The poem although translated is still clearly that of the author and so first and foremost he deserves the credit, just as it is. After all, a bad poem cannot be made a good one even by the most skilled translator. Yet, by equal measure, a good poem can very easily be ruined by a bad translation. And so I think great credit deserves to go to W. S. Merwin for not just bringing a classic poem to those of us who do not speak Spanish, but for creating a beautiful poem that well resembles the original by doing so.

This thought of the translators shared labour along with that of the author in order to produce something of worth and value has long stayed with me. In many ways my life is a poem, and I am a translator. God made me, and He made me to be like Him. The bible refers to us as God’s craftsmanship, His work of art and a reflection of Himself. But whether or not what God made me to be is lived out by what I say and what I do, is dependent upon me. Will I be a good translation or a bad one?