Page 4 - The Circle / July 2016

By THE REV. CANON DR. ANDREW SHELDON
4
the CIRCLE | JULY 2016
Godly Play and the
CHALLENGE OF CONTEXT
Godly Play has an expanding world-wide presence in many different countries, cultures, and contexts. This is to be celebrated. But there is also a sense in which Godly Play is situated in a particular country, culture, and context. As such, one of the more interesting aspects of the international development of Godly Play is the crucial, careful, and sometimes controversial work of contextualisation. This has many facets. For instance, our friends in the southern hemisphere have had to adapt the language of the story of The Circle of the Church Year to reflect the seasonal patterns that take place down under. In some Godly Play rooms the story of Holy Baptism is accompanied by a small wooden tank in which one of the ‘people of God’ is immersed three times to reflect the practice of their tradition. The garb of the person behind the table of the Good Shepherd is adjusted to reflect local custom. As one Godly Player mentioned to me, the desert, for some, may not be a dangerous place, but instead the place they call home. Indeed this past season of Easter, while telling ‘Knowing Jesus in a New Way,’ I found myself quickly converting miles into kilometres! These are just a few examples of how Godly Play is appropriately rendered to reflect a particular setting or circumstance. There are, I’m sure, many more, and I would be delighted to have you share them with us.
One of the more important bits of contextualisation is the translation of the Godly Play lexicon into other languages. On a recent trip to Europe I spent much of my time in discussions and negotiations around this very issue. In the Dutch speaking part of Belgium—Flanders— we put the finishing touches on a plan to translate and publish in Dutch for Godly Play storytellers in Flanders, the Netherlands, and potentially anywhere else Dutch is spoken. Our partners in Flanders and The Netherlands are hard at work on this project, and there will be Godly Play publications available in Dutch before the end of this year.
In Geneva we had similar conversations around the French translations and publications. The French translation as well is a collegial piece of work with input from French speaking Canada and is following a timeline that should see publications within the next year. One interesting note is that after much discussion and experimentation, the French translators have decided that the best French translation of the words Godly Play, is Godly Play!
These are just two of the more formal processes taking place at this point in time. Godly Play is already published in one form or another in at least 4 other languages, and stories are told in more than 15 languages with even more on the horizon. Indeed in some parts of the Godly Play world this involves nuancing one form of English into another form of English.
Belgian Storytellers