Lost in Translation...

I spent this week doing my own rear-view-mirror landscape study. As I said in the blogs about my husband's home town, I am also from ultra-rural America. I love it, because the people there are so original. Often they can't afford to run out and buy what they need at the local superstore, so they learn to be creative with whatever they have at hand. And this spirit of ingenuity bleeds over into other areas of their lives, ones that are visible to the public. When I see these things, I feel surprised. I feel surprised, then tender. I feel honored to see their display of vulnerability alongside their creative problem-solving. Some time or another, they decided to use duct tape for something other than ducts. But these things simply don't translate to Trendy World without losing their dignity, not when the original imagery comes from Rural World.

It's the sort of thing that happened when my sister and I went to eat at a Chinese restaurant there in our hometown. Next door to the restaurant was a shop, advertising as its specialty: jewelry, candles and pet fashions. Their front window backed up this claim. We stood there a moment, debating what we might choose from their displayed selection in case we wanted to enhance the beauty of our ears, throats, wrists, fireplace mantles or dogs. (See, the moment loses all its dignity, doesn't it?) Anyway, after my Oriental Vegetable Delight, I did as everyone does: I opened my fortune cookie. It had both my sister and me hysterical for two days; but by the third day, I fell in love with what it said.

First, it helps to know that a proper translation of the fortune's sentiment would convey the idea that my eyes have a magnetic effect on a secret admirer, which is just the thing to make the day of any woman who bases all her security on drawing the attention of a secret admirer (secret, for God's sake, means she wasn't even trying!) Thank goodness I am not such a woman, because here is what the fortune actually read: "Your eyes magnetize a secret admirer." We laughed that I was apparently one of those Xman-styled mutants. (And I must say, I could get with the idea of being the red-headed gal who saved the world, but gave her life in doing it and so became simply a voice-over heard during scenes of rushing nature footage.) Then we went on to visualizing scenarios where you, my love, would never need to be threatened by said admirers. Should one go so far as to attempt to kidnap me, I would be so stressed that my fibromyalgia spasms would kick in, making my eye twitch and my neck seize up. Meanwhile, seeing that he would be magnetized, he would have the hindrance of navigating the magnetic objects flying at him through space. You would surely overtake us quickly, as we would stand out in a crowd: he'd be the panhandler-looking dude with a woman slung over his shoulder, a woman who seemed to be doing an imitation of Igor, from Young Frankenstein. He wouldn't be moving very fast, nor would he be able to fight much, with the watches and refrigerator magnets and what not hanging from him, so you could easily rescue me. A half-day at a spa would counteract the Igor thing, and we'd be back to normal. (You know how conversations go when I get together with my sister. We laugh until we cry and/or wet our pants.)

The transformation of my opinion about this fortune came a couple of days later. I was reading a section in Blue Like Jazz where the author described a lecture he heard. The communications professor giving this talk asked his audience to throw out some metaphors for "love". They came up with things like valuing people, investing in people, about relationships being priceless or bankrupt. The author was stunned to learn that almost all the metaphors thrown out were economic. The professor, however, was not surprised. He went on to discuss how this "love as a commodity" perception can prove to be quite destructive, and demonstrates how the underlying purpose of such love in our society is personal gratification, or more tragically personal validation. If the "loved one's" needs get met in the course of his/her meeting our needs, then it's a win-win situation. This is one kind of love, but it has trouble navigating change or producing and raising offspring effectively. Miller assessed that, "...with love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did." He realized rightly that to genuinely represent love according to its principles in Christian spirituality, one must love all people, taking delight in their existence, even setting them ahead of our own delight in our own existence. He knew he fell miles short of that aim of God's for his life. (Who among us doesn't?) So he repented, and asked God to replace the economic metaphor with something like "a free gift metaphor or a magnet metaphor." "...I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people from the mire and toward healing. I knew this was the way God had loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson," he said.

I thought again about my fortune cookie: eyes (which are called the window to the soul) pouring out something that touches the hearts of others, ones who are bashful to admit how God has somehow touched them because of what He pours through me. But they don't have to tell me. Their own eyes (souls) become magnets for others.

I think, my love, the fortune was a little joke between us and God. I think He is full of joy about what He has already accomplished in us, that we are to be magnet-love people. Maybe He has done this already; maybe it is in the works. The fact that you hold me loosely for reasons larger than your own needs show that it is in the works. Tomorrow, when I am not so tired, I'll tell you more about my rear-view mirror experience. This leads into it, but I need to think and pray a little about how it does.