Nothing is lost in translation
with the language of God

This column is a confession. Forgive me, dear reader, for not have the courage to be as bad on vacation as I wanted to be.

            I returned last week from a 21-day trip to Italy and France with my wife and daughter. During that time, we did our best to get along in foreign cultures. This meant, among other things, communicating in the local language.

Here’s confession one: my undergraduate degree from Georgia Southern is in German with a minor in linguistics. My degree offers expertise that doesn’t come up much in daily life. My degree conjures images of a philosophy major flipping burgers with a history major.

However, a background in languages does help when traveling and my wife and daughter are even more gifted in learning language than I am. All of us have studied French, and so we concentrated our language work on Italian. Before we left, we listened to a language CD of Italian and when we arrived in Italy, we bought “Italian for Travelers.”

It proved to be an odd phrase book, with no chart of pronouns and few words for routine travel situations. They made up for the lack with lots of words to help in emergencies. This meant, that we couldn’t ever find the phrase “Where is the bathroom?” but we easily located, “There has been a flood,” “There are severe casualties” and “Are you willing to testify?”

This is where I confess to not being as bad as I wanted to be. It helps to know that I have found in traveling on four continents, that making jokes in other languages is fun. The native speakers enjoy it immensely as it gives them a chance to laugh at me as well as with me. I have pulled off some pretty good jokes by the right use of a limited vocabulary.

The odd little phrase book we bought in Italy offered a lot of choice ways to make a joke. I just never had the courage to speak up.

For example, think of the possibilities to say to a guard in The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the oldest art museum in the world. While looking admiringly on a painting by da Vinci or Michaelangelo, I could have said “Ha anche altri colori?” which means “Have you got any other colors?” Or I could have used the Italian for “Is it under warranty?” “I have just had an accident” “Do you have something cheaper?” “a viper has bitten me” or the ever useful phrase from the book, “I must insist on being compensated.”

There would have been that awkward pause while the guard decided if he heard me correctly. Then the second pause as he considered if I meant what I said. Finally, as I smiled, would come the dawning realization that is was a joke. He would have gone home telling that story.

Of course, it could have gone wrong. He could have misunderstood and been offended. Then I could have just used another phrase from the book like “I have been in the sun too long” or “I had an electric shock.”

It never got that far. I was the good boy and only used my Italian to buy groceries, order food in restaurants and the like. I never did prove effective at using language to find a bathroom.

Then there were the times that my own lack of language was a problem. It wasn’t me with the phrase book trying to communicate, but someone else trying to get through to me. Then the speaker needed more gestures than words to convey their meaning. I was glad they bothered, but this is how I learned the Italian for such helpful hints as “You are going the wrong way on a one-way street!” and “If you park there, you’ll be towed.”

Finally, there were the times when the meaning seared straight into me with no need for translation, like walking through Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, while a choir sang up by the high altar. Shafts of light cut through motes of dust as they streamed in through the cupola high overhead as if this were a movie set instead of real life. The choir, obviously pleased to be picked to sing at the famed church, was singing out its very soul with such a ringing clarity that I knew they were praising God though I couldn’t understand a single word.

Later, I slipped in to a Catholic Church in the little town of Villecroze, France just as the Sunday worship began. I could do no more than pick up words here or there in French, but I could easily tell the 50 or so people wanted to be there that morning worshipping together.

A woman led the congregation in singing a Psalm and her soprano voice ringing off the thick walls of the old stone church was nothing short of breathtaking. The priest preached with such obvious sincerity that though I only followed the rough outline of his sermon, I was blessed to be there for it.

This was in all so secular Europe, where churches and cathedrals are much visited, but worshipped in not so much. They are museums more than thriving faith communities. The provincial village of Villecroze, where we lived a week in France, had just that one church and it wasn’t near full that Sunday. This could have been deeply saddening. Yet I found joy in seeing how much those who did gather wanted that worship experience.

There was no cultural reason to be there. No one would notice or care if they didn’t come, other than the few who regularly worshipped. We felt the same in the church where we worshipped in Assisi, Italy. In both cases, there were small congregations worshipping joyfully.

There was no language barrier at all when it came to feeling God’s presence. No little devil stood on my shoulder prompting me to use the wrong phrase to get a laugh in those churches. This experience of God, especially as it came through the words of a worship service in French, gave me the renewed appreciation that the language God speaks to each of our hearts is our own. It’s the language of love, beyond words.

So I must confess that I never had the courage to use the words of our idiosyncratic phrase book to break down the barrier of language and get a laugh. But I also found that the barrier of language was broken down in a more significant way by our loving God who communicates beyond words, no matter where you find yourself.

            (The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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