I guess I should feed back on Dallas a bit: last month I had the privilege of heading over to Dallas, Texas to take part in the biennial conference on Bible translation. Very cool venue, which somehow combined excellence of facility and service with a sense of family and inclusiveness. While I was there I also got to serve coffee and translate as a volunteer, which really helped given that I knew pretty much no-one and I was the only guy wearing my badge of affiliation to Eglise Pierres Vivantes, Marseille.
Of course, I had my talk in my mind a lot and had some other distractions in the form of my food intolerances kicking off to a food intake I had less control over (even in November at home I only get about half my days suffering-free). But there was some real solid friendship, prayer and hosting support there (my hosts Doug and Joy were extraordinarily good to me), and thanks to some last-minute changes and rehearsals things went fairly well on the day of my presentation. I really believe it made some people think and start to rethink their allegiance to some of the inadequate "lordship" vocab we are clinging to within English Christendom. Not only did I get a fair bit of feedback after, but I was even made aware of others discussing the content of this review and call for reassessment. Dave S., himself a seasoned Bible translator and professional technical translator, also absolutely merits a word of thanks for all his critical appraisal of my preparation, I remain indebted to him. Thank you, Dave.
After everything quietened down, I got to the best bit: visiting my sister and her family in SLC, and meeting my nephew at last, Levi, barely 20 months. We had some fantastic adventures thanks to Sarah and made it over to Utah for some extraordinary experiences in the beautiful deserts of Canyonland, the arches and so on. I'd love to go back and hire some off-road vehicles there!
On my return, sadly, I won't hide I was disappointed that despite all the prayers and support from my local church, I discovered this was not shared by the elders who strangely barred me from holding a feedback meeting on the church premises. Quite a few more people would have attended this meeting, including from another church in the city with whom I have some good relationships, but I was only permitted to hold it in my own home. So one evening I attempted that. However, after my request for a church notice was largely forgotten and folks were already dismissed at the end of a service, we had 2 people in attendance at my less-accessible location. We still had a good time, we looked at the progress of Bible translation over the last few years, the religiosity of some of our language, looked at some photos, drank tea...
Part of me wants to thrash it out with my elders, who have placed my work in entirely the wrong box (it's still just my personal journey and potentially harmful to others). They can't really see the necessity for the church to break free from religious language or untangle my current work from my earlier Trinity questions and the terrible way our previous church leader dealt with that (yep, you can be left in a negative shadow years after you think its passed!). Like others, but not all, they can't engage fully with the call I'm giving to equip ourselves pastorally and evangelically with more meaningful words that connect us and secure us with greater clarity in our intentions, our commitment, our guidance, our vulnerability, our love, our support. But I just don't have the time - and perhaps part of me just thinks that this path is too confrontational, for despite the injustice I have been shown, it is not necessarily fruitful to address head-on. And you know, when I was really low and church was hard for me, most of them were there for me. I was loved while having so little to offer in return. I'll never forget that. And I'm actually blessed with pretty good relationships with them individually - it's the collective that seems tough. Our pastor invited me to discuss with the elders some time to sort it out. Maybe. I don't want to put myself under more pressure for little change, and it's hard to see what else I can say.
So the other part of me is absolutely focussed with continuing this work. I think it's precious. Speaking at the ILC was significant, but like anything, you have to keep the momentum going if you're going to see it through to its potential, wherever and whatever that may be. Because of a meeting at the conference I was able to connect to a coordinator of the United Bible Societies who was interested in a French article for their peer-reviewed journal, Le Sycomore. We're now a couple of drafts in and I'm up to my ears correcting, proofing and so on. I also have a first draft of the article into The Bible Translator. My third follow-on is a submission of my Abstract to present at another conference next Spring in Belgium. My rough appraisal on where things stand between those three are that the Le Sycomore is likely to go ahead, which is really great; the BT journal, which is as prestigious as it gets in this world I think, well I guess I have an outside chance of being selected for review. The conference I expect to be selected. Unfortunately, again this will be another all-expenses-for-me affair, but we managed to make it work last time (literally within about 20 bucks! Amazing!) so I don't see why we wouldn't go for it.
If I find the energy and time I'd love to feed back more soon about some of the fascinating new things I have been discovering (and correcting) as I have been fine-tuning my research for publication and integrating my analysis of "le Seigneur" into that of "the Lord". I also would like to reserve a future post or two for response to some sociolinguistic works that I have in my pipeline to read and review.
Thank you for your interest! I leave you with a photo of me next to the "grassy knoll" from which Kennedy was sadly assassinated back in 1963.
Of course, I had my talk in my mind a lot and had some other distractions in the form of my food intolerances kicking off to a food intake I had less control over (even in November at home I only get about half my days suffering-free). But there was some real solid friendship, prayer and hosting support there (my hosts Doug and Joy were extraordinarily good to me), and thanks to some last-minute changes and rehearsals things went fairly well on the day of my presentation. I really believe it made some people think and start to rethink their allegiance to some of the inadequate "lordship" vocab we are clinging to within English Christendom. Not only did I get a fair bit of feedback after, but I was even made aware of others discussing the content of this review and call for reassessment. Dave S., himself a seasoned Bible translator and professional technical translator, also absolutely merits a word of thanks for all his critical appraisal of my preparation, I remain indebted to him. Thank you, Dave.
After everything quietened down, I got to the best bit: visiting my sister and her family in SLC, and meeting my nephew at last, Levi, barely 20 months. We had some fantastic adventures thanks to Sarah and made it over to Utah for some extraordinary experiences in the beautiful deserts of Canyonland, the arches and so on. I'd love to go back and hire some off-road vehicles there!
On my return, sadly, I won't hide I was disappointed that despite all the prayers and support from my local church, I discovered this was not shared by the elders who strangely barred me from holding a feedback meeting on the church premises. Quite a few more people would have attended this meeting, including from another church in the city with whom I have some good relationships, but I was only permitted to hold it in my own home. So one evening I attempted that. However, after my request for a church notice was largely forgotten and folks were already dismissed at the end of a service, we had 2 people in attendance at my less-accessible location. We still had a good time, we looked at the progress of Bible translation over the last few years, the religiosity of some of our language, looked at some photos, drank tea...
Part of me wants to thrash it out with my elders, who have placed my work in entirely the wrong box (it's still just my personal journey and potentially harmful to others). They can't really see the necessity for the church to break free from religious language or untangle my current work from my earlier Trinity questions and the terrible way our previous church leader dealt with that (yep, you can be left in a negative shadow years after you think its passed!). Like others, but not all, they can't engage fully with the call I'm giving to equip ourselves pastorally and evangelically with more meaningful words that connect us and secure us with greater clarity in our intentions, our commitment, our guidance, our vulnerability, our love, our support. But I just don't have the time - and perhaps part of me just thinks that this path is too confrontational, for despite the injustice I have been shown, it is not necessarily fruitful to address head-on. And you know, when I was really low and church was hard for me, most of them were there for me. I was loved while having so little to offer in return. I'll never forget that. And I'm actually blessed with pretty good relationships with them individually - it's the collective that seems tough. Our pastor invited me to discuss with the elders some time to sort it out. Maybe. I don't want to put myself under more pressure for little change, and it's hard to see what else I can say.
So the other part of me is absolutely focussed with continuing this work. I think it's precious. Speaking at the ILC was significant, but like anything, you have to keep the momentum going if you're going to see it through to its potential, wherever and whatever that may be. Because of a meeting at the conference I was able to connect to a coordinator of the United Bible Societies who was interested in a French article for their peer-reviewed journal, Le Sycomore. We're now a couple of drafts in and I'm up to my ears correcting, proofing and so on. I also have a first draft of the article into The Bible Translator. My third follow-on is a submission of my Abstract to present at another conference next Spring in Belgium. My rough appraisal on where things stand between those three are that the Le Sycomore is likely to go ahead, which is really great; the BT journal, which is as prestigious as it gets in this world I think, well I guess I have an outside chance of being selected for review. The conference I expect to be selected. Unfortunately, again this will be another all-expenses-for-me affair, but we managed to make it work last time (literally within about 20 bucks! Amazing!) so I don't see why we wouldn't go for it.
If I find the energy and time I'd love to feed back more soon about some of the fascinating new things I have been discovering (and correcting) as I have been fine-tuning my research for publication and integrating my analysis of "le Seigneur" into that of "the Lord". I also would like to reserve a future post or two for response to some sociolinguistic works that I have in my pipeline to read and review.
Thank you for your interest! I leave you with a photo of me next to the "grassy knoll" from which Kennedy was sadly assassinated back in 1963.
