Papyrus 52

Lost in Translation

Papyrus 52 (contemporary mosaic) by debgrant

Papyrus 52: Lost in Translation

This art piece was a homework assignment for a contemporary mosaic class I have been taking. The assignment was to use the tesserae(stones, glass, bits of whatever) to represent words on a page. It was a good lesson in observing the shapes, capitalizations, the font, the spacing, the punctuation, etc. of the art of words. I chose the fragment Papyrus 52, which is one of the oldest known pieces of manuscript of the Gospel of John. The fragment contains the part where Pilate asks, “What is truth?” to Jesus, who will be condemned to death within hours. For me, the art piece represents what we have lost in translation. Even when we can translate the original Greek into words we can recognize, we are still often as clueless as Pilate. It represents our illiteracy in translating Jesus’ life into our lives today.

It is Christmas Eve, and as you can tell, I am struggling with the joy to the world over the birth of Jesus in a world where he is still lost in translation. Don Henley in his song “Heart of the Matter,” asked, “How can love survive in such a graceless age?” That was 36 years ago. And here we are, wondering again, how does love survive without grace - the grace to face our failures with the truth? How do we find the grace we need to face the truth and all the people we have hurt in order for us all to live?

My hindsight is better than my foresight. I don’t always know how to move forward. I do know how I got here. Someone beyond ourselves loved me, loved us this far. For some, it happened through families and friends and neighbors over years of daily struggles and heartwrenching pain, deep listening and profound understanding, all done so not to lose one another in translation. For some of us, love appeared in relationships that came and went, short moments, conversations over a beer, a donation, a gift, a “how ya doing?” text message, a relentless greeting from a dog. Even in the brokenness, we found ways to string the truth of love alive together. Enough to keep going, to keep giving what we knew to be true.

Today, we are the ones tasked with giving joy to the world, with giving birth to grace so that this will not be a graceless age, with translating love so that no one will be lost in translation.

A Blessed Christmas to you and yours,

debgrant