Translating search and salvation
Dora Dueck
Susan Fish. Winding Trail Press, 2005. 112 pages.
Herald readers who have followed Susan Fish’s “Intersection” columns will be familiar with her passion — and ability — to convey spiritual truth through word pictures and stories. In one column (Sept. 2), she called the process of finding fresh ways to communicate faith “a guided tour” or “translation.”
Now, in Seeker of Stars, Fish offers a fine example: a novella that uses the biblical story of the Magi to explore spiritual longing and discovery of the one, true God.
The fictional Melchior shares his quest in the form of a memoir. From his boyhood on, he says, he loved to watch the stars, which he calls “my beauties.” He has also had a recurring dream of reaching for “the unmoving star.” In this dream, “tingles of light” course through his body as he grasps it.
An injury to his hand while setting the loom in his father’s rug-making shop changes the course of Melchior’s life. Instead of “mindless dusty days in the workshop,” he is able to pursue his nearly-abandoned desire to study the stars with the astronomers of the king’s court. Then, when a new star appears in the sky, he is part of the company that travels to Israel to find the new king it portends. Here Melchior discovers not only the mystery of the star but the Maker of the “spaces between the stars.”
This is a lovely “translation” on several levels. The details of setting and character feel credible and draw us into another time and place. Furthermore, Melchior’s spiritual quest is intertwined with the complications of the rest of his life — as son, brother, husband — just as they are for most of us. This is not so much a religious story, therefore, as a human story in which religion appears both natural and necessary. It will surely appeal to other seekers.
At the same time, Christian readers will find that the fiction slides very comfortably into the facts and spirit of the biblical record. (It can be difficult for those who know the Bible well to surrender fully to the world of a fictionalized Bible story; part of the mind stays alert to whether the author is getting it “right.”)
Finally, the writing is generally assured and often poetic. Seeker of Stars is a pleasure to read and I recommend it.
Dora Dueck is associate editor of MB Herald.