why am I here?

Hey,

Nothing pretentious! I just want to share a few thoughts on faith and literature, mostly translations, on a somewhat regular basis.

You can skip the religious stuff if you like, but I think you could learn a thing or two from someone who has been seeking Jesus wholeheartedly from earliest childhood. Don't expect me to repeat the pat answers we hear all the time, though. Let me just say from the outset that I believe God heals, speaks and answers prayer today just like He did in the past. And that seeking God is not for sissies. In terms of Christian traditions I'm a mix and pledge allegiance to no particular denomination - though I'm a churchgoer, of course. It's about the truth.

I have a PhD in the area of literary translation. If someone out there takes pleasure in a couple of poems I've translated, that'll be enough for me.

The following comes from a Brazilian writer named José de Alencar (1829-1877). He helped create a national literature using Native Brazilian themes. But here, in a novel called Cinco Minutos ("Five Minutes"), we read a local version of Jane Austen, as it were.

Unhappy, indeed cruel. Not the widowhood of the soul torn away from its twin - for there yet remains a feeling, conqueror over death and time - but the emptiness of the heart which roams alone in this world like a ghost among ruins of joy concealed to its eyes.



If you've never experienced grief, how can you understand this? But that's a matter for another post!

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