'Struck by the poetic force' - Protestantse Kerk Nederland
26 oktober 2015
'Deep Calls Unto Deep' is the English title of Arjan Plaisier's book 'Overvloed and Overgave'. Dr. Arjan Plaisier is general secretary of the synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands.
Pagina-inhoud
*Steve J. Van der Weele (94) translated it voluntarily from Dutch to English. Van der Weele is a former teacher of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. It took him hours of hard work. Why did he do this?
"I suppose the ultimate answer is that I saw that doing so would enlarge the influence of his book and, thus, enrich the church and the religious community by providing access to what I came to regard as a significant book. And I thought that would be a service to the church of Jesus Christ.
As a man of letters, you are also looking for ways to reach people with good reading material--books, newsletters, and so on. And that conviction kept me working on it even at times of discouragement.
To answer your question at a different level, I need to tell you some history of how I came to know Dr. Plaisier, and how I came to translate his earlier book, Is Shakespeare ook onder de Profeten?
A colleague of his, Harry Dop, was a guest at my home over a week-end several years ago after a conference he had attended here at Calvin College. From our conversation, he soon learned that I had been a teacher of English at that college - now retired, after 34 years of teaching. "Well," he
said. "I have a good friend {Dr. Plaisier} who has just written a book of essays on Shakespeare. I will have him send you a copy, and you must translate it." And he did that. And I translated Dr. Plaisier's book on Shakespeare with the title Deep Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays. And I found a
publisher--Wipf and Stock, from Eugene, Oregon.
Arjan came to Calvin College last year (2014) for a conference. We arranged to meet together. We had a pleasant time. Then he gave me a copy of his new book, Overvloed and Overgave. He wrote in the book that it was a gift, and that he was not implying that I should translate it. Of course, he
knew that I would make some effort to read it, and, maybe, he even hoped I would do so. As I paged through it, I came to enjoy his selection of images about God's bounty and his imaginative development of those images in such effective writing. I also came to understand the purpose of his
writing. Even in Dutch, I could see how this book could fill a niche in the library of devotional books. I was especially attracted to the paragraph on what came to be page 41 in my translation, reading, "I believe in God. My life is suspended by a silken thread on this belief" (page 55 in his
book) reading, "Ik geloof in God. Mijn leven hangt aan het zijden draadje van dit geloof." I was struck by the poetic force of how he describes what it must mean for a person to live without God. Such a person stands on the edge of an abyss, in a world empty of meaning, and without a sense of
direction or purpose. I could also surmise the depth of his writing, with his easy reference to poetry, history, theology, and philosophy. And I appreciated his familiarity with the novelist Marilynne Robinson, one of our fine Christian novelists. I knew it would be a challenge.
I also came to know that one reason Arjan wrote the book was to attract people back into the church. We can use such urging in our country, in our church communities, as well. I decided to give the early pages a try. As I said, we had much in common--our religious faith literature poetry,
philosophy, the Christian life, as was true for the Shakespeare book as well. (I should add that the Shakespeare book was easier, since I had taught all the plays he discusses in his book). Well, since I am retired, and am still permitted some office space at the college, I saw a challenge
(despite my 94 years). With the heavy use of the dictionary, and what I was able to bring to his ideas, and with a colleague who monitored my translation, I set to work. I tried to do several pages a day. I found it a blessing to encounter his deep faith and ability express it in such a vivid
way. I went from one chapter to the next, sometimes wondering whether that might be the last. But it became progressively easier. And then I came to the final three chapters, under the heading Werkelijkheid, somewhat different material from the rest of the book (as he points out himself), and
now I had to decide whether to translate those as well. Once I started on these chapters, I could not stop. One sentence, one paragraph, led to the next. I was captivated by the way he treated Truth, Goodness, and Beauty - the insight, and the poetic rhythms.
And so I completed the work. I have personally arranged for the distribution of 210 copies (some I sold, at a discount), others I gave as gifts, some I donated to libraries, book clubs, and so on. I give copies also to students, who then take them into their dormitories, which is the right
audience for the book. I hope and pray that the book will do good in the church and the world--and in both versions."