英文自修92：耶稣升天节

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。

译者：王宥轩

审读：武太白

------------------------

Thought for the Day 20140529 - Canon Angela Tilby

英文自修：耶稣升天节

王宥轩译

Today is one of the great days of the Christian calendar. Ascension Day 耶稣升天节(复活节后第四十日). When I was a child you could get off school if you could prove you were going to church. I remember trying this wheeze but it didn’t work because my parents wouldn’t perjure themselves by writing for permission. In those days school authorities accommodated the rhythms of faith, allowing worship and rest to interrupt the timetable.

今天是基督教年历中重要的一天。耶稣升天节。在我小的时候，如果你能证明你要去教堂做礼拜，你就不用上课了。我曾经企图用这个伎俩，但没有成功，因为我父母不愿做伪证，为我写请假条。在当时，学校当局顺应信仰的时间安排，允许课程时间根据礼拜和休息作调整。

Even then we were losing the link between time off and faith, forgetting that our word holiday derives from holy day. With that loss is a loss of perspective. Secular life often seems to lack unpressured time. Even our holidays get filled up with worthwhile and ‘fun’ activities.

即便在那时，我们仍未抓住休假与信仰之间的联系，不知道“holiday”（假日）一词是来自“holy day”（宗教节日）的。这种损失体现的是一种视角的缺失。俗世的生活似乎总缺少无压力的时间。甚至连假日也排满了有价值、“有趣”的活动。

Since the elections a week ago I have felt carried along by the waves of bad temper, cheeky triumph and anxious complaint that the results have stirred up. There is a stand off between the political establishment and those who feel aggrieved which is set to run and run until the next elections and the next. Fascinating though all this is to news junkies like myself it can become tiring – as though we are driving ourselves round and round like hamsters in a treadmill. We can’t stop because of course it all matters. It matters whether we are in or out of Europe. It matters whether Scotland votes for independence or not. It matters whether people can move freely across borders or not.

选举活动已持续了一周，大选结果在群众中掀起了阵阵情绪波动：暴躁、获胜方的狂妄和（落选阵营的）焦虑抱怨等，而我也无法置身事外。执政党与在野党之间有所疏远，后者感到愤懑不平，于是不断地为接下来的每一次竞选进行筹备。对像我这样的新闻迷来说，这些都很有趣，但是也很令人疲乏——感觉我们像是跑步机上的仓鼠，一圈又一圈地跑个不停。但我们又不能停下来，因为这很重要。我们属不属于欧洲很重要。苏格兰投票结果是否支持独立很重要。人们能否自由出入境也很重要。

But from another point of view it matters less than we think. Our intensity cloaks our ignorance. Because we can’t read the future we don’t exactly know why the big issues which divide us matter at all. All we can see is the present and the past, and so however passionately pro- or anti-Europe we may be; whatever our views on immigration we can’t ultimately prove our point by showing that we are right; we can only back our hunches and make our case as best as we can. We control less than we think we do. And our politicians are guessing too, backing their hunches, making their case in the face of uncertainty.

但从另一个角度看，这些又没我们想的那么重要。我们的激动掩饰了无知。因为我们无法预知未来，也不知道这些划分界限的大事件究竟哪里重要。我们只能看到现在和过去，所以，不论我们有多支持或反对欧洲；不论我们对移民持何种观点，谁也无法用有力的终极事实证明自己的观点是对的；我们只能跟着直觉走，并尽力证明自己是有理的。而我们所能控制的，要比想象中的少很多。我们的政治家们也只是在猜测，跟着他们的直觉走，在不确定因素中证明自己有理。

Sometimes sanity requires a different perspective. On Ascension Day we are called to attend not to earth but to heaven. There is a distance between earth and heaven, between what we know and what we long for. The hymns and prayers set for today describe the risen Jesus entering the presence of God, standing for the whole human race and its destiny. Heaven does not control or divide or ask for votes. But as Charles Wesley’s hymn puts it: ‘There we shall with thee remain, partners of thine endless reign’. When I go to Church this evening I will be reminded that our human dignity is given by God, and that though working for human good is the most important thing we do, we have no blueprint for human happiness. Rest and contemplation matter. Everything else is guesswork.

有时候，理智要求我们换一种视角。耶稣升天日，我们是对着天堂礼拜，而不是对着大地。天与地之间的距离，也是我们的已知与期许之间的距离。今天指定的圣歌和祷文描述了人体的耶稣进入上帝的世界，代表着整个人类和人类的命运。天堂并未控制、划分、或要求投票选举。但，正如查理•卫斯理的赞美诗中说的“我们将与你同在，陪伴你，你是永远的主人。”今晚去教堂做礼拜时，我会想到人性的尊严是上帝赋予的，尽管为人类的利益服务是最重要的，我们还未设计出人类幸福的蓝图。休息和冥想很重要。其他都只是猜想。