Why Translation is Religious

As I progress further in my reading of Derrida I wanted this space to grapple with his ideas and attempt to comprehend them. Perhaps the best sense of the word comprehend is lost to us today, but it survives in the greek as signifying both the understanding intelecutally of a thing and it's physical overcoming, making the action itself more concrete a little closer to our hands.

Of course, the question of whether knoweldge ought to be viewed as an object divested, categorized, and ulitmately reducible is always at issue in the work of analysis -- the breaking apart of words-- but I'm not gonna dwell on this here.

Of course, the idea that translation provides a bridge across language and pervades our everyday experience not simply because we may speak spanish/chinese at work, then english at home, but it is because we always translate our own intentions and actions to various pupils and to our colleagues. Translation is not simply done within a text, or even between two classically "different" langauges, but it is also the struggle for communication we expereince when we point to that particular bottle of whine want to buy for dinner at a grocery store.

Translation is of the quotidian. And thus in pervading over all communciation this is also how translation becomes religious par excellence. How does one relate to the "divine," how do we measure our own "divine" experience? These are all problems of translation first and foremost. Moreover, how do we relate the meaning of this moment to the moment of our future self? This is the extraordinary power of memory, when we synthesize the moment so that it can be translated across time and recovered for our future selves. Both individual and cultural memory function this same way.

Here Derrida brings to our attention that "the sacred text marks the limit, the pure even if inaccessible model, of pure transferability, the ideal starting point from which one could think, measure, and evaluate the essential, that is to say poetic, translation... what comes to pass in the sacred text is the occurence of a pas de sens... that does not signify poverty of meaning but no meaning that would be itself, meaning, beyond any "literality." And right here is the sacred, the sacred surrenders itself to translation, which devotes itself to the sacred." (133, des tours de babel)

This is one reason why literature will always bear a strong relationship with religious expression in Derrida's mind, and why its foolish to talk of a secular or sacred literature and their inseparability. The sacred always exists as the measure for communication. The divine expression, pas de sens or as the "not of sense", is the very limit of communication and is inscribed within our every moment at the checkout counter, pointing to the whine bottle. But it also the limit by which we extrapolate the essential. The essential is caught up in this intimate experience of meaning that cannot be contained by itself. And this is truly wonderful in fact, for if meaning could be contained in itself, if we had a finite list of meaning-words that captured every experience-- then we would also no longer be human for we would have killed the necessary mystery needed to sustain our being. And I think this is also why the sacred is absolutely essential and very meaningful for Derrida.

Moreover, this makes the relativistic claims hurled at Derrida kind of a mute point. There is very much religious meaning found here, but it cannot be meaning itself but instead it strives to be pas de sens.

Derrida also brings to mind pronouns in his discussion of translation. First, think of your name, it was given to you and it might have a superficial meaning like honor, graciousness or something but that meaning captures nothing about you, the label fails quite miserably at this. So what is it's function? it has no proper meaning to it, except that it is historically significant becuase it is the name for you now, living in this common era. However, in being your name it has a meaning for you and your parents, it says nothing about you but it opens the real real possibility for your existence. The word is filled with incredible meaning as you continue to exist, and each day you fill it with other meanings, as plumber, waitress, artist, lover, etc. This is wonderful, and this is also religious. As we come to understand that name the limit of you will always fail us, and so we can remember you and your spirit can survive it. You live on wonderfully, gloriously and spiritually in our translations of your life.

-Tim

Nouevelles Noticias

Hey everyone, so it looks as though that previous attempt at creative writing seemed to fall into ruin for now. ah well, c'est la vie.

Anyhow, this week I received a message which made me incredible excited and thankful at the same time. Of many qualified and quite capable applicants, I received a full scholarship to Claremont School of Theology to study languages and Christianity. This is truly a blessing and I thank God for what he has provided me thus far in my walk with him. This knowledge came as a bit of a shock to myself, and I am still quite deeply humbled by the weight of this knowledge and what it means for my future academic pursuits. Prasie be to God! (which for those of you who don't know is a very common arabic phrase)

Currently I am taking Arabic 1, French 2, and Spanish 4 donde yo hablo muchisimo, mas de espanol 3. It's all great, all interesting and keeps me focused! My only regret is that I do not have time really to hang out and go running with Daniel at Oxy which I very much enjoyed. Mais, Les temps passe en avance and I am changing to become a guess "more" scholararly?

I really hope to visit some of my freinds in the future. And one day I hope to visit France or Spain again :). When I either have some money to stay there or something.

Another note about my spiritual walk with God,
I have been reading Tich Nah Han recently and it was deeply enlightening and helpful to explain awareness and useful strategies for participating fully in the moment. I have felt this kind of moment detatchment before, and it is quite frankly a beautiful moment from God. I took all of monday to try to enact this sabbath space and it was great.

And I realize too that perhaps my greatest vice is letting myself become absorbed in the movies, tv, and games that so often distract me from inward searching and ruminating. For this week, I will do my best to spend time reading and taking moments to become more fully aware and live out this mindful awareness.

Of course, the idea of a goal is not quite right, but I won't get into that. The idea of planning goals already structures the time I'm supposed to be liberated from and thus the aware moment is not free, but subordiante to the desire to accomplish something. I hope to further come to terms with this kind of teological thinking in the future.

Ok bye for now!
With the sincerist and warmest thoughts! God Bless you friends!
-Tim