英文自修44：逆境中的信仰

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。

本篇译者：王宥轩，沪上某名牌大学英语专业学生

审读、定稿、图片、背景图文：武太白

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Thought for the Day 20140312 - Rev Lucy Winkett

The nuns found themselves the focus of world media on their release despite one of them being too weak to walk to the car, carried there in the end by one of her captors. The politics are inevitably complicated and the violence with which the negotiations over prisoner exchanges is still surrounded, cannot be overstated. 



获释的修女们成了全球媒体关注的焦点，尽管其中有一位身体虚弱，连车都上不了，最后只能由其逮捕者把她带上去。政治的复杂性不可避免，政治暴力仍然包围着囚犯交换的协商，被夸大到了极致。

 

But one aspect of their story struck me. In a video of them publicised before Christmas, they’d been shown in captivity not wearing their customary crosses. This was assumed to be part of the restrictions imposed on them by their captors. But on their release, they said clearly that “no one forced us to remove our crosses. It seemed like the right thing to do”. Their capacity to be sensitive to this and by being so remaining connected with the humanity of their captors struck me as something surprising and moving. 



但她们的故事中有件事触动了我。在圣诞节前公开一个视频中，她们正被监禁，没有像往常一样戴着十字架。对此，人们推测是当时逮捕者对她们的限制之一。但她们被释放后清楚地说道，“没有人迫使过我们拿掉十字架。我们这么做似乎是对的。”她们对此的感悟，以及她们与逮捕者之间共有的人道主义打动了我，令我惊讶与感动。

Their decision to remove their crosses reminded me of another striking comment made by the 84 year old Christian nun Sister Megan Rice 修女赖斯who was jailed last month for three years in the United States for trespass 侵入 and protest at a nuclear facility in Tennessee田纳西州. She stated to the court at her trial “To remain in prison for the rest of my life would be the greatest gift you can give me”. 



由她们拿掉十字架的决定，我想起84岁的基督教修女赖斯令人印象深刻的言论。上个月，她因侵入并抗议美国田纳西州的一个核设施而被判了三年监禁。她在法庭审判中陈述，“判我终身监禁，将是您对我最好的福佑。”

The reputation of nuns has sometimes been undermined in recent years but the actions of these contemporary women, dedicated to Christ, from different nationalities, denominations and backgrounds seem to me to speak clearly far beyond the confines of their religious communities. They seem to find their own security not in labels or symbols of their status but in their interior world; their trust in God. 

近几年，修女们的声誉有时候被破坏了，但是当代这些女性来自不同的国家，信奉不同的宗教，有着不同的背景，她们为基督奉献自己，她们的行动清楚地证明了她们已远远超越了宗教界限。她们的安全感并非来自她们身份的标签或象征，而是她们的内心世界，来自她们对上帝的信仰。

For the Greek Orthodox nuns, removing their crosses was not a capitulation in a competitive religious environment; it was a freely chosen act of sensitivity, signalling that their faith was not dependent on such statements. Becoming an inmate for Sister Megan did not seem to her a loss of status but a gift. I see in these women more than individual acts of humility or kindness or courage. They are living lives that act as signposts for the rest of us; lives that act as an invitation to take seriously the depth and potential of our spiritual selves and to find ways to live from that depth in our own circumstances. They are lives that, as a Quaker 贵格会教徒 saying puts it, are marked by boundless happiness, absolute fearlessness and constant difficulty.

对希腊正教的修女而言，拿掉十字架并不是在竞争激烈的宗教环境中投降；而是一种感悟后的自由选择，标志着她们的信仰并不依赖于言论。对修女赖斯而言，被监禁并非地位损失，而是一种福佑。从她们身上，我看到的不仅是个人的谦卑、善良或勇气的行为。她们的言行就是我们的指示牌；引领我们用心发掘自己灵魂的深度与潜能，并学会从那样的深度领悟生活。她们的一生，正如贵格会格言所说，充满无边的幸福、大无畏的勇气和持续不断的考验。

相关新闻报道链接

http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2014-02/19/c_126159489.htm

修女赖斯(Megan Gillespie Rice)：生于1930年1月31日，她是天主教反核运动者与和平爱好者。

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Syria crisis: Nuns freed by rebels arrive in Damascus

叙利亚危机：反对派释放的修女到达大马士革 

A group of Greek Orthodox nuns held for three months by rebels in Syria after being taken from their convent in Maaloula have arrived back in Damascus.

 

The nuns were brought to the Lebanese border town of Arsal early on Monday where they were handed over to Lebanese officials and then driven to Syria.

They said they were tired, but that they had been mostly well treated.

They were freed as part of a prisoner exchange involving some 150 women and children held by the Syrian government.

The deal was negotiated by officials from Qatar and Lebanon.