After harping on the problems within the Anglican communion (see below), it’s nice to find some truly good news:
It’s a story that loses a lot in translation: Holy Apostles Episcopal Church in St. Paul is working on a Hmong version of the Book of Common Prayer. This simple-sounding endeavor goes far beyond just replacing one word with another.
It’s a story about a church that was in danger of dying joining forces with a culture that was worried about the same thing. It’s a story about finding just the right words in a language that didn’t even exist in written form until the 1950s. It’s a story about a book from a St. Paul neighborhood that will spread around the world.
Five years in the making, the first Hmong translation of the most important book in the Episcopalian service might be completed by fall.
“That’s our dream, anyway,” said the Rev. William Bulson, the man overseeing the project. “It’s really time-consuming work.”
As they say, read the whole thing for some really sharp and sensitive religion reporting.
*That’s “Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit” in Hmong, according to this AP story that scooped the Strib by about three months or so.
