Lost in Translation

Sometimes as a parent, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job. And then there's the other 99% of the time. For example, a little before Christmas I came across this great idea for teaching children about charity and giving. This mom helps her children choose five toys that they no longer play with. They put these toys in a bag and leave it out on Christmas Eve for Santa to take to children who don't have any toys. Santa then leaves new toys. I thought Sam was old enough to understand the concept of giving, so one day I sat down with him and explained to him that there are poor boys and girls out there who don't have any toys at all to play with. "Wouldn't that be sad to not have any toys at all?" I asked. Sam agreed. I then explained that we have lots and lots of toys, some that we don't even play with anymore. I suggested that we choose a few toys that we don't play with anymore and leave them for Santa to take to those poor children who don't have anything. I also told him that I was sure Santa was going to be bringing him some new toys. Sam suddenly started to cry. At first, I thought he was crying out of compassion for the poor children who have nothing. My heart was saying, "Awwwww..." until Sam wailed out, "Don't give my toys away! Don't let the poor boys and girls get my toys!" It took me an hour to calm him down. That night he actually woke up in the middle of the night screaming, "Not the poor boys and girls!" Apparently my message was lost in translation.

The other day I had a hankering for brownies, and so I made some. When Nic got home from some church meetings, he asked for a brownie. I told him to help himself and to cover them up for me when he was done. As he was covering the brownies with some aluminum foil, Sam came into the kitchen and cried out, "No! Don't give them to the neighbors!" Nic about fell over laughing. Yet another lesson lost in translation.

An excerpt from The Red Tape Letters

The Red Tape Letters

By Jolene Jenkins

“Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses.”

--Lao Tzu

“Better to have lost and loved than never to have loved at all.”

--Ernest Hemingway

“The heart wants what it wants. There’s no logic to these things. You meet someone and you fall in love and that’s that.”

--Woody Allen

“All is fair in love and war.”

--Proverb

“Love is a battlefield.”

--Pat Benetar

To

C.S. Lewis

Preface

I HAVE no intention of explaining how these letters came into my possession.

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall concerning love. One is apathy or a lack of desire, passion, or emotion about love. To go about in life with an indifference toward love endangers a person to not fully experience life and all that it has to offer. The other error is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy obsession with love or an object or subject of love. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail puppy love or true love with the same delight. The sort of script used in this book can be very easily obtained by anyone who has once learned the knack; but disposed and excitable people or people who are prone to use excessive amounts of glitter, exclamation points, or clichés who might make a bad use of it shall not learn it from me.

Readers are advised to remember that a cupid is often blinded by love. Not everything that Amore, affectionately known as Uncle Ray, should be assumed to be true or right in every circumstance or for every individual. I have made no attempt to identify any of the human beings mentioned in these letters; but I think it very unlikely that the portraits, say of the patient’s mother, are entirely accurate.

In conclusion, I ought to add that no effort has been made to clear up the chronology of the letters. Not because of laziness on my part, but in order to preserve the authenticity of the letters. When dealing with love, time can be lengthy or short, depending on the phase of love, and terrestrial time seems to have no bearing on a cupid. What was going on in the world, except in so far as it happens now and then to impinge upon the relationship status of one human being, was obviously of no interest to Uncle Ray.

Jolene Jenkins

February 14, 2013

I

MY DEAR AMORINI,

            I note what you say about guiding our patient’s Internet browsing and taking care that he doesn’t see a good deal of his happy bachelor friend. But are you not being a trifle naïve? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to convince him to fall in love. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the human still knew pretty well what love was and what it was not; and love was thought of in a favorable manner. They still connected love with unselfishness, commitment, matrimony, and children. They connected love with doing, with action, and were prepared to alter their way of life in order to commit to their love. But what with the media, The Bachelor reality show, Taylor Swift break-up songs, and other such weapons, society has largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies concerning love dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of love and commitment primarily as “good” or “bad”, but as “idealized” or “sappy”, “outworn” or “too contemporary”, “conventional” or “ruthless”. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in helping him consider love. Don’t waste time trying to make him think love will bring him happiness! Make him think love is fun, or profitable, or popular—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.