Lost in Translation

 It was back in April, right after Easter, and we were traveling home from Brenham to Montgomery.  Even though we've lived here for awhile now, we still take notice of the geography and the names that we encounter, so different in some ways from the geography and names in our homeland of Minnesota.  I noticed at some point that we were in Brazos County, and that we had traveled over the Brazos River.  We both wondered what "Brazos" meant.  My husband thought that maybe brazes meant brown, because that seemed to be the color of the river, at least from where we could see.  So I did what people do these days:  I googled it.  I googled "Brazos" and discovered that it did not mean "brown."  It was Spanish for "arms."  I thought of all the other words derived from this one:  brace, embrace, bracelet, bracket.  I'm sure there are more.

And then I learned more:  that the full name of the Brazos River is this:  "Rio de los brazos de Dios" -- the River of the Arms of God.  That's what the Spanish explorers called it.  They didn't simply see a body of water, flowing -- they saw something of God -- wide, embracing, stretching out.  Somehow it made the river seem alive to me.  What else was I not noticing?

*****

Then it was July, and I was in Minnesota, a place I know well, or so I think.  We were staying a little north of the Twin Cities, near the City of Anoka, a small historic town that rests on the place where the Rum River flows into the mighty Mississippi.  We walked around the town and peered over the bridges, and drove along the edge of the Rum River, where there were flowering bushes and trees and picnic tables and swings.  I got out of the car and looked around.  I didn't know anything about the Rum River, although I had lived in Minnesota all of my life and knew plenty about the Mississippi and the Minnesota, the St. Croix and the Root Rivers.  So I did what people do these days:  I googled it.  I discovered that the Rum River flows from the great Mille Lacs Lake in north central Minnesota to the Mississippi.  Mille Lacs is French for "thousand lakes".  The Ojibwa people called it "Zaaga'igan" (grand lake), and in Dakota it was called "Bde Wakhan" (Spiritual/Mystic Lake.).  It was a place of spiritual importance, as was the river that flowed out of it. 

The Rum River.  The name is a mistranslation.  When explorers first heard its name, "Spirit River", they thought it meant "spirits" -- like rum.  But it really meant Spirit, as in God.

*****

The River of the Arms of God.  The Spirit River.  The water flows, and shimmers, and gives life.  It is true, what Jacob said.  "Surely God is in this place, and I -- I did not know it."