After a return to translation,
– – I remember. My soul is spread out before God like a puddle of water in the hot sun. I feel my spirit rising up within me to moisten and soften my heart with tears that cleanse me of the world’s hardening smut and worthless frivolity. The English Bible is like a lantern with a fresh, warm firelight within it. The heat is intoxicating like wine’s drunkenness (without dissipation) that begets an even deeper sobriety. My melted form twists and swirls before the majesty of the Fire in which it was first forged, and in this white-hot groaning holiness, the dross collects around the mouth of my chest in guttural wailings and tears of joy and cries of laughter. The aches of futility are assuaged, and the drudgery of time is nullified, my youth kindles like a flame dancing on the wick of a single moment. I am opened up to the glorious goodness of God in humbled trust and the hope of glory is bursting from my heart in song, poetry, story, and questions seeking to lay hold of even more of the Answer.

– – This is only the birth of something new. From here, my thoughts and feelings are blessed to carry the fire of God’s Holy Word into every part of my being through my Journals probing and applying and forging of the truth of life’s mystery into a sensible, handled, accessible portal for myself and all who hear me to enter in to the same gateway into the Wonder of God’s person. Thoughts are laid like iron bars parallel upon the perpendicular wood of my emotions, laid out and empowered and straightened by the Holy fire purified, so that the locomotive of my will to choose and serve and love God with all my heart may transport this precious cargo all around the trail He himself has laid out for my wheels. Not to speed or slow except by His bidding for any hills or curves I cannot see from my own window on the side of the locomotive. As I seek vision, He shows me a map of the railroad upon which I am tracked, and helps me see ways to cultivate what I carry in my payload, even as He sets me in motion Himself. The payload is destined for a particular destiny of destination and the Boiler’s fire must not go out til there is no more track.

– – This birth and cultivation manifest a different sort of fruit than mere thoughts, but also a more excellent and beautiful abundance out of which my joy is mingled again with sorrow and expressed colorfully to the world: Heaven sings to the Earth and in the earth the reply rises from deep within it. A soul without song is an ember glowing but flickering with no tongue of flame. Music explosion makes the dance of heat give off radiant and comforting light to all who languish in darkness and who shiver in cold disbelief. They warm themselves with blankets of silence trusting their own heat to keep warm, when suddenly in their eyes and ears a melody of painful pleasure touches their dry frozen eyes with warm moisture and the dull ringing ears with magical delight. The skill of the composer to bend his heart and lightly carry his listener to a place where he has exercised the eternal possibilities of the finite, given the mind room to explore new patterns and meaning, and most of all, gathered all hearers into one solid pool of Eternity’s Elixir from which all souls take their draught which expediently refreshes it in God.

By a verse of translation a man is confronted by his darkness.
–     O that he would break at the sight and melt!
The next verse warms his heart with honest tears.
–     O that his laughter may accompany each drop!
Another and peace tests him with rest and sleep.
–     O that he may have the heart to keep pursuing his Beloved!
Still a fourth and the shape is delighting to his eyes.
–     O that he may preserve the art of the shape in all he does!
A Fifth and the Master knows the one who is just beginning to know.
–     O that he may cling to the Father’s hand and not let go!
A Sixth and the agony of the world’s condition is felt.
–     O that the scribe may not falter at the weight!
A Seventh and the glorious solution is realized.
–     O that God’s doings may be his only acts!
Eight, the numbers cease to count the length.
–     O that a finite man not grow weary of eternity!
Nine, who am I? I have forgotten myself for Him.
–     O that their happiness together be treasured forever!
Ten, the ripple has ceased and Christ is at hand.
–     O that nothing dare come between him and His God!
– – Words fail beyond 10, but colors and music and poetry and deeds of life can give the echo of Translation’s effects.

– – Even still there is more. In silence, He, that True Holy Spirit speaks, giving oxygen to the flame which fragile burns to light the way.
–     By this light, Jesus explained the Scriptures to his disciples so that their hearts burned within them.
–     By this light, Peter and the disciples proclaimed the deeds of God to all peoples and languages birthing the church.
–     By this light, Saints and Prophets saw visions, performed miracles spoke of the future, and conquered the world by faith.
–     By this light, the church spread abroad abolishing heresy and expanding His Kingdom around the whole world.
–     By this light, a monk translated the Scriptures for himself and started a Reformation of the church in Europe.
–     By this light, expositors and translators continue to reinvigorate the church with the fresh ever-true revelation of Jesus Christ.
–     By this light, I, a Light-bringing Advocate and son of the Word of Fire, live to remind God’s children using music and words of the Gospel of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ so that the church may be one, and the Earth be reshaped for the Glory of God.

– – And so, this gem, this secret Jewel of my existence I make know to you now, dear Joyous Bondwoman. Translation is the fountain in which I play youthfully, through which I am made wiser than many of the aged. It is the Treasure of my soul. It is the very firing of my secret furnace. It is my most intimate time with God. It is the Key in the ignition of my spirit. It is the inspiration of all music I do that is good. It is the stone upon which I sharpen the warrior’s sword and the oil with which I anoint my shepherd’s staff.
– – Without my translation, I quickly dim like a suffocating flame. The filth of the Earth I intake and spout forth futile flagrant folly and ferociousness without translation. Without my translation, many have been my failures and stumblings in anger, lust, and laziness, and anxiousness. The weakness of my mortal frame becomes a concavity which breaks to serve itself without translation. Without translating I see only ill in people’s faces, and readily condemn others. Only my own righteousness is my security without translation. By translation I am deeply reshaped to Christ’s form. Without it I am disfigured repugnantly to callous frivolity.

– – Still more, yea more. Still even more and more. Free time is but a canvas upon which to paint eternal mystery. O how I have sluggishly slacked in heart away from translating in Hebrew to this extent! How sweet and good and true love is when shared with another soul, though its effects are cultivated to similar results to translation with time-spent devotion to Christ. And in the light of Love like this life leaps and ladles out longevity. Time cannot validate itself without meeting eternity’s approval, and when I translate I cannot check the time.
– – I hope that your ears, as I have perceived them in the fire, be ready to receive this part of me so verbosely yet concisely expressed. This is translation, and this is what I pray that God has given you the heart to understand.

Matthew 13:52~”Every scribe who has become a disciple of the Kingdom of Heaven is like a head of a household who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”