英文自修50：追寻真相，执着再执着

因近日忙碌，先转过来，容我日后再看。朋友们多批评！

本篇译者：Young

Thought for the Day 2014 0322 Rev Roy Jenkins

As the search for the missing Malaysianairline enters its third week, the grief of those waiting seems never-ending.Yet many among the families of those on board refuse to abandon hope, clingingdesperately to the possibility that somehow, somewhere, their loved ones havesurvived.
马航失联航班的搜救进入第三周，等待消息的人们陷入无尽的悲伤。机上乘客的家人仍怀抱希望，拼命坚持他们的亲人可能还活在某个地方。

Until they know otherwise, they’ll expectthe hunt to be continued, however great the odds against a happy outcome. Theyneed to know what’s happened, because the not knowing is a particular agony.
除非亲人已遇难，否则，不管希望多么渺茫，他们都希望继续搜救。他们需要知道真相，因为不能知道真相本身就是极大的痛苦。

It’s an experience shared by many peoplewhose lives have been shattered when someone has vanished suddenly withouttrace. I have a friend whose cousin failed to return to his university hall 48years ago, and the family have never seen or heard from him since; my friendstill searches for him, still looks for clues, for explanations. And heencounters lots of others driven by a similar passion.
许多人都有这种经历—某个人突然消失得无影无踪，生活变得支离破碎。四十八年前，我朋友的表弟从学校消失，再没有回来。从此以后，家里人再没有见过他，也没有他的音信。我的朋友还在寻找他，寻找线索，要为他的失踪找一个解释。他也遇到过许多和他有同样愿望的人。

I’ve never forgotten sitting in a bullet-scarredroom in El Salvador 萨尔瓦多and listening to the stories of mothers, wives and children ofmen who’d disappeared after being snatched 抢夺 by soldiers or by paramilitary 准军事的 groups working for the government. Young children were being takenat the same time, and only this week one family were appealing again for newsof two daughters they’ve not seen for more than thirty years.

我至今难忘，在萨尔瓦多，我坐在弹痕累累的屋子里，听母亲、妻子和孩子们讲诉他们的儿子、丈夫、父亲被士兵或者政府的准军事小组抢走的事。儿童也被强行带走。就在这周，还有一家人在苦苦打探他们30多年没有见面的女儿。

The longing for reunion, and the need toknow, never go away. Marion Partington has written powerfully about theintensity of the agony. Her sister Lucy was lost for two decades before she wasfound to be one of Fred West’svictims; she describesthe pain of this period as something ‘no one speaks about because there are nowords or because the words will crack open the pain…Life goes on, but only lifethat pretends, hides in the silence, that magnifies the pain.’
人们一直都有对家人团圆的渴望、对真相的需要。马里恩·帕廷顿曾描述过这种痛苦。他的姐姐露西失踪了20年，人们发现她时，她竟成了弗瑞德·韦斯特凶杀案的受害者。她是这么形容这20年的：“没有人提起这件事，因为一切尽在不言中，或者只要一提及就会触及痛处。生活继续。而正是那伪装、隐藏在平静之下的生活，放大了这种痛苦。”

Some understandably become too weary, andsettle for making what they can of a life which will always have a hugeunresolved mystery near its centre. For others the searching now defines whothey are: they will persevere come what may, drawing strength from wellsof memory, of shared love, of a commitment to seeing the truthrevealed and justice done.

因此不难理解，有些人因为过于疲倦，满足于在自己的能力范围之内理解生活，而生活的本质之外却环绕着巨大的悬而未决的疑团。对其他人来说，搜救定义着他们是谁：不管发生什么，他们都会坚忍不拔，从深深的回忆，共同的爱，矢志不渝的维护真相和伸张正义中汲取力量。

As they do this, they’re reflecting, Ibelieve, the perseverance of a God who never gives up. Jesus told three storiesabout lostness - a shepherd who looks for one missing sheep; a woman who sweepsher whole house to find the single coin she’s mislaid; and a rich farmer wholoses one son to a life of reckless indulgence and another to the misery ofgrudging self-righteous respectability: he grieves over both of them, and wantsboth back. I think that a God who is always looking for the lost is even nowembracing those waiting families who need to know, and sustaining those whostill search.
他们这么做，正反映了上帝的坚忍不拔和永不言弃。耶稣讲了三个关于迷失的故事：牧羊人寻找失踪的羊；女人清理整间屋子寻找错放的一枚硬币；富农的一个儿子迷失在放纵不羁的生活里，另一个迷失在自以为是，追求体面的悲惨境遇里。富农悲痛不已，想要找回他们。我以为，上帝总是在寻找那些迷失的人，此刻他正拥抱着那些渴望真相的家人，支撑着那些仍在搜救的人们。