英文自修36：虽终归尘土，请善用生命

I brought the film back and sat down with an editor to turn all the disconnected sequences into a narrative. We had filmed on Ash Wednesday 圣灰星期三 –that’s today – and had loads of footage of the choir processing round the cathedral singing the Litany – a long prayer for everything and everyone to mark the beginning of Lent. As the choir sang the congregation came forward and the clergy marked each one on their foreheads with ashes saying, ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return’. My film editor had no particular religious background and was expecting to make an entertaining film focused on the choristers. But he really liked this Ash Wednesday material. I think it was the truthfulness which got to him; that worship made it possible for one human being to say to another that they are going to die. ‘You are dust and to dust you shall return’. So much of the time we deny this – we have to – we have lives to get on with. But it’s not healthy to lose sight of death altogether. Denying death can make us greedy and grasping, and I think that is sometimes a way of trying to avoid the loss of everything which death represents. I have often been asked as a priest not to be too heavy at funerals, to celebrate the life of the deceased with lots of stories and anecdotes of the deceased – as though my job were in part to pretend the person hadn’t died at all. 



我带回电影，与剪辑师坐下来将断断续续的片段编成完整的故事。我们拍了《圣灰星期三》——也就是今天——存有大量教堂里合唱的镜头，他们唱的是连祷文——一段很长的为万物和众生所做的祷告，这标志着大斋节的开始。合唱进行中，会众们出现，神父在他们额前一一点上灰迹，一边说，“记住你是泥土，并终将归入泥土。”我的电影剪辑师没有任何宗教背景，本期望制作一部关于唱诗班歌手的娱乐电影。但他非常喜欢圣灰星期三这一题材。我想是真实打动了他；这样的信仰使得一个人能够对另一个人说他们都终将死去。‘你是泥土，并终将归入泥土。’很多时候我们都否认这一点——我们不得不——日子还是要过。但是完全忽视死亡也是不可取的。否认死亡，我们会变得非常贪婪，我觉得，有时候这是一种办法，要逃避死亡所代表的一切损失。在担任主持葬礼的牧师时，我常常被要求不要太凝重，不要用很多关于逝者的故事和轶闻来歌颂其生平——似乎假装他们还活着也是我工作的一部分。

Even religious funerals sometimes deny death; over emphasising resurrection hope as though grief and heartbreak were evidence of not having enough faith. The truth is that we are all very afraid of death and its finality. 


有时候，连宗教仪式也否认死亡；过度强调死而复生的可能以至于悲伤和心痛只能显示信仰不够虔诚。事实上，我们都非常害怕死亡及其终结性。

This evening I will take part in the same Ash Wednesday ceremony I filmed at Salisbury 索尔兹伯里大教堂（英国最高尖顶的大教堂） all those years ago. What I have come to realise is that those solemn words: ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return’ need not be frightening or depressing. In fact I have come to find them strangely comforting. I think that is what my editor found as he watched the ceremony at Salisbury. The truth about death needs to be spoken, person to person. The gritty 多沙的 feel of the ash on your forehead, the universal, intimate naming of death from one human being to another – both being on the same journey to the same place. 


今晚我将参加自己多年前在索尔兹伯里拍摄的那部《圣灰星期三》的典礼。我渐渐理解，“你是泥土，并终将归入泥土。”这句话不一定不可怕，也不一定令人沮丧。事实上，我觉得这话令人感到新奇的惬意。我想剪辑师在看了索尔兹伯里的典礼后也会感受到这一点。关于死亡的真理应该口口相传。你感受到额前的泥土，一人对另一人明白说出的死亡之名——二者都在同一条路上，通往同一个地方。

 

Mortality is the ultimate solidarity. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. If we can accept this truth it sets us free to live, to be more grateful for the gift of life itself, to find the wisdom and grace, as the funeral service says, to use aright the time that is left to us on earth.

逝去是终极的一体。地归地，灰入灰，尘归尘。若我们能接受这一真相，我们就能自由地生活，更感激上帝恩赐的礼物——生命，去发现智慧与从容，正如葬礼仪式中说的，善用我们在人世的时间。